


And I Said—

by pocketmumbles (livelikejack)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Warm Bodies Fusion, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Asexual Character, Asexual Scott McCall, Canon-Typical Violence, Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Allison Argent/Isaac Lahey, Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Romeo and Juliet References, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelikejack/pseuds/pocketmumbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>D means Dead.</p><p> <br/><em>(Or, a Warm Bodies AU where Scott is a Living human and Derek is…well…not.)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. D

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of the movie/book Warm Bodies, which is itself an AU of Romeo and Juliet – with zombies, not nearly as much character death, and a happy ending. I generally followed the plot of the movie, pulled a lot of background from the book, and made up a few bits on my own.
> 
> Warnings are in the tags and restated here: **Minor Character Death** , **Implied/Referenced Self-Harm** , **Suicide Ideation**. The onscreen minor character death is Allison (others are offscreen but referenced), and occurs very early in the story as it does in movie/book canon. The story’s cast reflects Teen Wolf’s S4 lineup – anyone who left the show before then is not in this fic, and since this is set in a zombie apocalypse, is probably no longer alive.
> 
> Fic title is a line from the song [“Love Story”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E) by Taylor Swift, which I feel hits a nice incongruity between the tongue-in-cheek goofiness of the story’s premise and the angst of its reality. (Honestly, the Warm Bodies story is deceptively hilarious with a ton of angst lurking right beneath the surface. So a lot like Romeo and Juliet, really.) [Fic playlist here.](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com/post/118553271426/title-and-i-said-chapters-4-4-fandom-teen-wolf)

Pale skin, even paler in the harsh bathroom lights, tough and firm and tinged gray. Dark hair, spread thick and full across a fleshy skull, down cheeks and around a grim line of a mouth. And eyes shining blue, bright blue, even brighter than the fluorescent lights and the cloudless sky outside.

The image in the mirror blinks once, twice, three times. Shoulders clad in stiff black leather rise and fall as the image sighs, drawing breath into unused lungs and back out in a rattling exhale. The image reaches forward, presses a hand against the glass. The bathroom is completely devoid of warmth, and the glass is cold, but the hand is even colder. His hand. Him. He.

He jabs a finger into the mirror, smearing out his name through the grimy dust. _D_. A harsh click of a tongue, a dragging exhale. All that remains of who he used to be. A single, lonely letter. _D_.

Or, well, he hopes what he just wrote on the mirror is a D. He can’t actually read anymore. None of them can. He peers at the indecipherable squiggle drawn on the mirror. It could be a D, maybe. It could be his name, his identity. It could be _him_.

He drags his palm across the rest of the mirror, wiping away the dust and his pathetic attempt at writing. His penmanship was probably better even when he was in preschool. He probably went to preschool. Maybe.

He stares into the mirror, into his own sallow reflection. “I…am…D.” It’s a weak affirmation, but it’s something. It’s something that means something, or used to mean something, or _will_ mean something. D could mean a definition. D could mean a declaration.

Sallow flesh tinged an unnatural gray and stretched taut over unyielding bones. Hair caked black from gristle, gore, endless years of monotonous shambles. And eyes glowing eerily blue, so bright and so lifeless all at once. D meant destruction. D meant deterioration.

He stares at his stiff face, at his half-rotting flesh. His hand clenches, jerky muscles tightening, and then his fist smashes through the mirror and into the wall behind it. Broken glass crashes around him, cutting through toughened skin and empty veins. He picks up a shard and squeezes tight until the jagged edge slices deep into his palm, and he doesn’t bleed, doesn’t hurt, doesn’t feel a thing.

D means Dead.


	2. Dead

He stumbles out of his jet, pausing at the bottom of the steps to peer across the airport. Dozens of Dead mill around aimlessly on the tarmac, some shuffling into the dimly-lit terminals while others gaze blankly at the sky. He moves past the crowd, nodding a greeting without waiting for a reply. Some dip their heads in recognition, some even lift their arms in a twitchy semblance of a wave, but most stare absently at him, around him, through him. Their bright blue eyes glow just as eerily as his own, but there’s an emptiness behind their gaze that makes his skin crawl.

He doesn’t have that emptiness, he thinks, and tries to push the thought away before his mind adds, _not yet_.

The emptiness sits dark and unsettling in him as he walks, slithering into his ribs and making his teeth ache. He schools his face into a blank expression as he shuffles past the Boneys. Their gaunt heads swivel towards him, cheeks yawning wide as their jaws clack together. He keeps walking, keeps his gait shambling and unhurried, until they turn away in dry clicks of vertebrae and ignore his presence.

The blank stares of his fellow Dead set his teeth on edge, but there’s something about the near-skeletal Boneys that shoots chills down his spine, sparks twitches through atrophied nerves and makes him shiver. It’s their eyes, maybe, burning red and skewering him in place, or maybe it’s the scant scraps of skin stretched paper-thin across their bodies. They’re more aware than most Dead, moving with purpose and speaking in harsh snaps of teeth, so the others fall under the Boneys’ leadership easily enough. There’s not much to lead, after all. The Boneys send them into the city when they’ve waited too long between feedings, fine. The Boneys steer them away from the unmoving Dead who’ve lost the willpower to take another step, fine. The Boneys gather up the weaker yellow-eyed Dead and dole them out for the rest to look after, fine.

He turns left at the terminal map – he can’t read it, no matter how many times he’s tried, but he knows its color-coded oblongs by heart – and heads for the bar. The soft crash of broken glass echoes from down the hallway, and he knows he’s heading in the right direction. The kid that the Boneys gave him always seems to enjoy smashing things, and M always indulges him.

M waves over their kid’s head as he approaches, bare legs swinging on the barstool. It’s unfortunate that she died wearing shorts, since her skin’s marred all over in scrapes and gaping wounds. He finally figured out how to take his jacket off a year ago, but still wears it just to keep his arms free from gouges. M never seems concerned, though, and always waves away the pants that he finds for her with a dismissive snort.

He watches her pour the contents of a half-empty bottle into a fresh glass, tucking it close to her chest before handing off the bottle to their kid sitting patiently atop the bar. The kid accepts it carefully, mouth splitting into a ghastly smile with two gaping holes where his upper canines should have grown in, then shoves his hands together and smashes the bottle to pieces.

M offers him the glass as he sits on the next barstool. He sniffs the clear liquid, nose wrinkling at the sharp sting of alcohol mixed with cloying artificial fruit, and shakes his head. She shrugs and drains the glass, waggling her eyebrows at his frown.

She likes doing things like that, eating and drinking human food – Living food. They’re human, too, technically, even if he’s not sure he really believes that. M’s retained more of her humanity than most – she even remembers the first letter of her name, which probably ranks her as a Dead genius – and when he sits with her, watching her drink tasteless alcohol and talking to each other in scraped-together syllables, he almost feels…he almost feels. Almost like he could still be human after all, somewhere deep beneath toughened flesh and creaking bones.

The emptiness stabs back into him, roiling through his gut and gripping tight. His fingers tap on the bar in an arrhythmic staccato, anxious, unhinged, _frantic_. M watches him with furrowed brows, and he struggles to muster up a word. “Want,” he says, a harsh exhale through twitching lips. “Need.”

The feeling claws at his insides, sharp and demanding, and even their kid stops playing to stare at him. He clenches his hands, shakes his head, and looks up at M. “Hungry.” It’s not the right word, not the right feeling at all, but he doesn’t know what else to say. Desperation, maybe, but managing four syllables in a row has always been a struggle for him.

Her face clears. She sets down the glass and nods with a sharp jerk of her neck. “Hunt.”

It’s easy enough to gather up enough Dead for a hunt. Mustering up a sense of intent is rare enough for the Dead, so it’s catching whenever it happens. He and M just have to lurch purposefully in the direction of the city, really, and then dozens start shambling after them.

The kid groans as they leave, and he can almost believe that it sounds sad. For a long moment he indulges in a fantasy of teaching the kid to read and write, walking him through every milestone of childhood – and then he stumbles into a pole and jerks back to reality.

None of the Dead children will ever grow up. They’ll never develop enough strength or memory to retain the skills that would keep them from dying…again. The Boneys pass them around to new Dead couples to care for and run the school to teach them to hunt, but they’ll never graduate. They’ll never even be able to follow the other Dead into the city to properly feed, since they’re too small and weak to stand a chance against the Living. The blank melancholy in the kid’s yellow eyes sinks deep in his gut and carves an empty hole into his core.

The scent of flesh and blood drifts towards them, dredging him out of his thoughts. They follow the scent to a building in the heart of the city, flat and low with a snake twisted around a staff on the broken sign outside. A hospital, his mind supplies with flashes of off-white hallways, squeaking gurneys, a cold needle sinking into the crook of his elbow and drawing back dark red blood. _Press down here_ , a crisp voice tells him, and his vein throbs under his fingers.

M nudges him, brows drawn together, and he slowly drops his hand from his arm. She jerks her head at the hospital entrance. “Too many.”

He looks back at their assembled crew, then sniffs at the Living’s tantalizing scent further within. They barely have three times as many Dead against the Living inside – terrible odds, practically Dead suicide. But that empty cavern digs into him, claws at him with an aimless frenzy, and he can’t find it in himself to care anymore. He wrenches out of M’s grip and sprints for the doors. The rest of the Dead follow him almost immediately, picking up on his near-manic intent and moving faster than any of them ever have before.

M sighs and catches up to him, knocking into his shoulder with a glare. He’s being reckless, he knows, he’s not thinking straight – but he can’t stand the emptiness eating him out from the inside, the utter hopelessness drawing his muscles taut as a bow. He’s afraid that if he turns back, if he stops moving and lets himself relax, he’ll never get back up again.

He’s _afraid_ , and the sudden realization of his own terror courses through him as hot as blood.

The door slams open under his shoulder, rusty hinges breaking to pieces from the impact. The Living are already waiting, pumping bullets into the Dead at his side and grazing his arm, but their eyes widen at the Dead’s urgency, at the near-Living purpose driving their hunger.

They may be armed to the teeth, but they’re all so young, faces still plump with puppy fat and acne. Their guns shake in unsteady arms, their limbs scramble further and further back, and their gazes dart towards the back corner for reassurance, for guidance against these Dead with inhuman – or maybe just _too_ human – speed and strength. They’re barely more than children, and they’re terrified. It’s plain as day on their faces, naked and raw like the roiling terror in his own chest, and he stumbles to a stop. They’re just as afraid as he is. He’s just as afraid as they are. Are they really so different after all—

A bullet crunches through his sternum. He jerks upright and whirls towards its source – the back corner. The group’s fearless leader, standing tall and firm atop a granite table, pumping bullets into the Dead with steady precision. Her gaze is cold, so devoid of emotion that she almost looks Dead amongst the gurgling screams of her own kind. Then a figure darts out from under the table, skids around a cabinet and out of sight, and the cold mask shatters. The blood drains from her face, dark eyes widen in despair, and her mouth opens to scream.

He drags her down by the ankle. The back of her head hits the table’s corner, and the solid granite crushes her skull like an egg. He tears away the jagged shards quickly, digging for the part that they all crave. That flash of memories, of wants and dreams and the bright, burning high of feeling _alive_. He drags out a handful of brains and crams it into his mouth, eyes sliding shut, and—

 

_“Happy birthday to you!”_

_You are eleven years old and opening your eyes to smoking candles atop a white cake. You blink, abruptly, at the flash from your mother’s camera, then again as your father presses a kiss to your hair._

_“Time for presents!” Your aunt dashes forward in a flurry of blonde hair, stacking brightly-wrapped gifts onto the table. The silver bullet swings from its chain around her neck, glinting in the sunlight, and she winks when she catches you staring at it again. “One day when you’re old enough, me and your dad’ll teach you how to make one yourself. Not yet, though. Gotta rack up a few more birthdays first.”_

_You giggle as she ruffles your hair, brushing back the dark strands that fall into your face. “Promise, Auntie Kate?”_

_She presses a kiss to your forehead. “I promise, Allison. On my word as an Argent.” She pushes a box in front of you while your mother cuts the cake. “Open this one first! It’s from me!”_

 

_You are fifteen years old and struggling against your jammed seatbelt as your mother drives you and your father far away from home. “We can’t leave!” you shout. “We can’t leave without Kate. We can’t leave her behind!”_

_“Kate will be safe in the hospital,” your father says. “That’s the best place for her right now. We can’t help her, but the doctors will.”_

_You stare at the congested highways behind leading away from the city. “Where are we going?” you ask. “What’s going on?”_

_Your parents glance at each other. “We’re going somewhere safe, Allison,” your mother says. “Somewhere new. You’ll get to make new friends!”_

_You think about all of the friends that you never had at your old school, and the pandemonium growing in the streets before you’d left. “We should’ve waited for Kate.”_

_Your parents glance at each other again. “She was getting better when we left,” your father says, voice carefully neutral. “And as soon as the hospital releases her, she’ll catch up with us.”_

_You glare at the back of his seat. “Promise?”_

_Your father turns around. You watch your mother turn away from the road, eyes darting towards his, but he stares you steadily in the eye and says, “Allison, I promise.”_

_You are eighteen years old and your mother goes out on a mission and doesn’t come back._

_You sit in Scott’s living room with your hand wrapped tight around Scott’s and you both wait for your mothers to return, yours from Security and his from Medical, and the days pass and neither do. You wait, and your mother doesn’t come back but your father does. He holds your mother’s silver necklace in his hands and unshed tears in his eyes and you scream, you scream until you can’t feel anything anymore._

_You sit in Scott’s living room with your hand wrapped tight around Scott’s after your mother’s funeral and you wait for his to return from Medical. You wait, and his mother comes back from quarantine, bright red from stinging showers and smelling of too much antiseptic. You wait until Scott leaves to ask why she’d been kept for so long, what caused the quarantine, and she squeezes your hands and doesn’t answer._

_You are eighteen years old and desperate to feel again, desperate to hold someone close and be held back, so you press your lips to Scott’s and press your hands to hot skin under his shirt._

_Scott pulls back, breath stuttering. “Um,” he says. “Can we – is it okay if-”_

_You lean back quickly, and his hands clutch tight and frantic over your back. “Yeah, sure. We can…take it slow. Whenever you’re ready.”_

_“Yeah. Thanks.” He nods, sitting up with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and, oh._ Oh.

_“Scott.” You lean in carefully, putting a hand on his shoulder. Too tense. “You know if you’re never ready, that’s okay, too, right?”_

_“I don’t mean_ never _,” Scott says quickly. “I just – just need some time. That’s all.”_

 _He shuffles his fingers restlessly. “I mean it, Scott,” you say. “If you never want to have sex, I’m happy with that. Just this is-” You wince internally. Wrong word. Wrong word. Not_ just _this. Just…this. “Scott,” you try again, winding your fingers through his, “_ This _is perfect.”_

_He sighs, relaxing minutely as you rest your head on his shoulder, and presses a kiss to the back of your hand. “I want what you want.”_

_“No, you don’t. Not always. And that’s a good thing.” You tilt your head back, grinning up at him. “You don’t have to just agree with whatever people want.”_

_Scott rolls his eyes. “I don’t always-”_

_“I know you don’t.” You nod. “Just with the big stuff. And this? This isn’t big stuff.”_

_“It_ is _,” Scott says, shaking his head. “What you want matters. You matter.”_

_Something sharp pinches in your chest at his words. “Thank you,” you say, pushing down a smile. “And that’s why this isn’t big stuff. I mean, for all we know, tomorrow the Corpses could tear down the Stadium and eat all of us. I’d rather spend my time with you…being with you. In a way that makes both of us happy.” You squeeze his hand and let out a breathy sigh. “The entire world’s gone to hell, but when I’m alone with you – when it’s just you and me, I feel…safe. I know I’m safe when I’m with you, Scott. And I want to be able to be that for you, too – for the big stuff and the little stuff. For all the things.”_

_He smiles. “All the stuff, all the things.”_

_“Yeah.” You laugh. “Stuff and things.”_

_“Yeah.” He leans in and kisses you, so soft and gentle that your eyes flutter shut. “Is that okay?”_

_You press your forehead to his, hand curling through his hair as you breathe him in. “Definitely, yes.”_

_You are nineteen years old and leading Scott outside the Stadium walls because you can, because neither of you are helpless and those high walls are so stifling and there’s an itch in your palms just begging you to leave, to run, to be_ free _._

_There’s a gun tucked into your thigh holster and a knife in Scott’s belt sheath because you’re stifled, not stupid, but the fresh air and weeds springing through cracks in the cement are dazzling, intoxicating in ways they’ve never been before. Scott grabs your hand with a whoop, and you laugh, scream, shriek in utter joy as you skip through the park. If you close your eyes, smell nothing but the pollen and feel nothing but Scott’s hand so solid and warm in yours, you can almost pretend that this is how things have always been._

_But your eyes have to open eventually, and they open to see a black leather jacket, a dirty gray shirt, skin-tight jeans tucked into black leather boots. You open your eyes to see blonde hair, matted and filthy and tangled in a silver bullet hanging from a rusty chain, and you open your eyes to see bright blue eyes staring back at you._

_Pain flares in your knee, and you don’t understand why until Scott crouches next to you, urges you to stand back up. “We can outrun her,” you hear over the roaring in your ears. “She’s the only one around. We can make it.”_

_You hear, “Kate,” whispered frail and weak from your own lips._

_Kate lunges forward, her left leg dragging as she stumbles towards you. Her mouth hangs open, drooling out filthy black sludge and a rattling groan, and you can’t move, can’t feel, can’t see anything but your favorite aunt lurching ever closer. You hear screams, maybe, an unintelligible mix of words and names and voices blending into an endless howl, and your breath drags heavy and tight in your lungs._

_Kate’s face freezes inches from yours, so close that her hair brushes over your face, and then she falls away. You scramble away, your own shriek echoing in your ears as gravel scrapes over your palms, and you finally find your feet again. You stand over her body, crumpled in a broken sprawl, fading blue eyes staring accusingly at you beneath a knife buried deep in her forehead._

_“I’m sorry.” You whirl to see Scott knelt behind you, hands shaking and sheath empty. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t get us away fast enough, she’d already grabbed you, I’m sorry, Allison, I’m so – I’m sorry.”_

_You are nineteen years old when you drag a Corpse’s corpse back to the Stadium and give your father his baby sister’s jacket stained with blood and gore._

_You are nineteen years old when you hold Scott close and kiss him for the last time._

_You are nineteen years old when you watch Scott kill someone because you were too weak to protect yourself._

_You are nineteen years old when you swear to never let that happen again._

_You are nineteen years old and staring at the boy who just buried your aunt. “You’re Isaac Lahey.”_

_He jabs his shovel into the ground and leans on it, not quite looking you in the eye. “Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s me.”_

_Isaac Lahey. The boy that Jackson’s team found wandering through the city, so covered in gristle and gore that he’d nearly been shot as a Corpse before someone noticed his eyes. You try to peer into them now, blue as the sky and still wild from years spent alone, but he ducks his head away. Scott had told you that Isaac was still adjusting, that he sometimes wakes up at night to find Isaac curled in a tight ball under his bed. “I’m Allison. Allison Argent.”_

_He blinks at your name. “Sorry about your family,” he says, nodding down at the freshly-turned dirt in front of you._

_“She’d been gone for a long time,” you say. Something bubbles in your throat, itchy and hysteric and horrifyingly helpless. “I…just never realized how many times you can lose someone nowadays.”_

_The corner of his mouth quirks. “Yeah. I know the feeling.” He tugs the shovel free and backs away. “I’ll leave you alone now, sorry.”_

_Kate’s gravestone stares at you, the engraved letters as piercing as her Dead eyes, and you find yourself taking a step, then another, then another, until you reach forward and nudge Isaac’s shovel. “Has Scott showed you around the Stadium yet?”_

_He turns, eyes darting everywhere but on you while his brow furrows. “Yeah, I got the grand tour my first day here.” He shrugs. “Well, I mean. My first day out of quarantine.”_

_“So you’ve been to the bar?” You can feel your voice pitching faster, that itchy bubbling rising through your throat again, and you try your hardest to swallow it down. “It’s just juice, of course, they must’ve told you about the alcohol ban, but, um, it’s nice. We could meet Scott and some other friends there.”_

_“I’m not very good at friends,” Isaac says. His shoulders tighten, hunching forward. “I…never was.”_

_You nod, following Isaac into the shed. “Okay, just us and Scott, then.” His jaw twitches. “Or…just you and Scott?” It’s fine, Lydia’ll let you hang around the school until she’s free, you can help the kids with their reading or weapons training, whichever one’s on the lesson plan today._

_Isaac puts away the shovel and turns around. “Why are you even talking to me? Did Scott put you up to it?”_

_“No, I…” You take a slow breath, air shuddering through your lungs. “I just don’t really want to get stuck in my head right now.”_

_The door shuts, and Isaac’s dirty boots stop in front of yours. “I used to talk to myself when I was alone in the city. Still do. Sometimes Scott’s there to listen, but-” He jams his hands into his pockets with a shrug. “It helps to say things out loud.”_

_You don’t hold out your hand because you know that he won’t take it, but he follows when you nod towards the tunnel. “What d’you think of grapefruit juice?”_

_His lips crack into a faint smile to match yours. “I lived off garbage for six months and that_ still _sounds like the most disgusting thing in the world.”_

_You are twenty-one years old and Colonel Braeden hands you your father’s blood-splattered ring and tells you that Isaac was never found. Your throat tightens as dry as your eyes and your mouth snaps shut like a trapdoor in your mind and you know it will never open again, nothing else will ever be let in and nothing will ever be let out._

_You are twenty-one years old and melting down two lumps of silver in the armory to fashion an arrowhead. Bullets are strong, but an arrow – an arrow can last so much longer, can be shot and restrung and shot again. Bullets destroy, but arrows endure. You hang it around your neck on a piece of string as a reminder._

_You are twenty-one years old and your mind is the only thing that you can call yours anymore, and you bury it away with your mother’s necklace and your father’s ring and Isaac’s empty grave because you can never be weak again._

_You are twenty-one years old and you are going to die. The Corpses come after you with unnatural speed, tearing through your team, and you take up a last stance on the table to bring as many down with you as you can. You always knew it was going to end, you always knew it was only a matter of time. You always knew that you’d come home to a half-filled grave, whatever parts of you were left. Your fear’s long gone, locked away safely in your mind. This is the end. This is how it ends. You reload your rifle, hands steady and mind calm, and sweep the room to take down more of the Dead._

_A Corpse lunges after Stiles. You hit the Corpse in the shoulder, then the head, then continue your sweep, but – Scott’s head shoots up, watching Stiles disappear under the falling Corpse. He turns, meets your eyes for a split second, then –_ no _. He pelts out from under the table, ducking past a Corpse and out of sight and_ no _, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, not Scott,_ not Scott—

 

His eyes snap open, and he looks down to see the arrowhead on a blue ribbon rapidly staining red nestled in his hand. The silver flashes as his hand moves, winking moonlight into his eye. He tucks it into his pocket as a memento, a souvenir of sorts that he always brings back from his outings. The memories all burn away after a few days, leaving him with nothing but empty trinkets lining the seats of his jet. Mementos missing their memories. He doesn’t know why he bothers, why he gathers souvenirs with a near compulsion, a scratch to an itch that aches deeper and deeper every time, but he wishes he could remember this time. Silver. Argent. A simple enough connection. He could manage at least that much, maybe.

He rises to lumber after the last of the Living, watching the boy scramble into a back corner and curse his empty gun. The boy’s head jerks up at his dragging footsteps, dark hair sliding back from wide brown eyes to meet his gaze and _no,_ it wasn’t supposed to happen like this, not Scott, _not Scott_ —

“Scott.”

He barely has time to register the name leaving his own lips before Scott hurls a knife into his forehead. The boy’s nerves must be really shot, though, because it barely even cuts through his skull. His eyes draw up to find the knife’s handle, head tilting back before he realizes how unhelpful that is.

He tugs the knife free and turns back to Scott, who stares back at him with a white-knuckled grip around – a shard of glass from the now-broken window. The boy’s resourceful, even if they both know that the shard is too small and dull to stand a chance against the Dead. He forces air into his lungs and tries again. “Scott.”

The color drains from Scott’s face. His chest stills. “Wh,” he gasps, limbs shaking. “Wha…”

He kneels in front of him and raises a hand. Scott flinches back. Okay, wrong move. He drops his hand, swaying awkwardly on his haunches. “Won’t kill,” he rumbles. “Keep…you safe.”

Scott stares at him like he’s out of his mind, which is pretty fair, all things considered. His grip loosens on the glass shard, though, which is good.

He scrapes blackened sludge from the cut on his forehead, then holds out his hand towards Scott again. “Keep you safe,” he repeats. “Scott.”

The glass clatters to the floor. Scott watches him, glassy-eyed, while he carefully smears the sludge over Scott’s face and down his neck, then gestures for Scott to stand. He briefly entertains the notion of helping Scott to his feet, like a proper gentleman in those old movies, but he already has enough trouble standing upright on his own. Damn necrotic tissues.

M shuffles towards him, gaze dragging over Scott. “You…turned?” she asks, head tilted in confusion.

He nods. The rest of the Dead stare at him with varying levels of confusion and apathy. It’s understandable; it’s very rare that a Living is purposefully converted to Dead. In almost every case, the craving takes over and the Dead devours the brain before the change can occur. No brain, no Dead. Just…regular dead. M peers closer at Scott, eyes narrowing, and he steps between them with a growl rumbling low in his throat. She rolls her head indifferently and nods at the door to leave.

Scott seems to be doing well enough during the long trek back to the airport. He stumbles almost as much as the rest of them, although none of the Dead seem to notice that it’s from nerve-wracked fear rather than a failed nervous system. But when they reach the airport and the weaker Dead appear, Scott freezes, limbs locking so tight that they shake. He nudges closer, bumping his hand against Scott’s in an attempt at comfort, but Scott nearly jumps out of his own skin instead.

The sludge covering his face is still enough to hide him, though, and the Dead ignore him in favor of tearing into the still-fresh body parts that the hunters drop in front of them. Scott gags at the sight, breath hissing fast and sharp through his teeth.

M sways towards him, clutching a dripping torso against her own. “For…kid,” she explains.

He nods. “Good idea.” Her mouth curves into a bloody grin, and she doesn’t even bat an eye at Scott before shuffling towards her own terminal. He nudges Scott’s hand again and leads him onto his jet.

Scott sits stiffly in the seat that he more or less pushes him into. They stare at each other from across the aisle for several long, painful minutes, Scott’s harsh breaths echoing throughout the silent jet while he clutches the seatbelt tight as a last-ditch weapon.

The tension hangs between them, so painfully awkward that he almost wants to die all over again. He sighs and leans across the aisle. “Won’t…eat,” he rasps, shaking his head as he brings his hand to his mouth. Scott’s eyes track his movements carefully, chest heaving too fast and heavy. “Keep you safe,” he adds, leaning forward to pat his arm gently. Touch is supposed to be comforting, right? Simple human contact is helpful, right?

Wrong. Scott jerks back, a strangled cry of dismay tangling in his throat. His breaths become slower, though, more sedated, almost like – “Oh god,” Scott chokes out, mouth dropping open in a desperate attempt to suck in air. “I – I can’t-”

_“-can’t join Security with you,” Scott says, biting moodily into a Carbtein bar and not quite meeting your eyes. “Dad told them my medical history. Said I’d be dead weight.”_

_You nod. “Your asthma.”_

_“I’m not the only one with asthma here,” he says. He yanks a bright red inhaler out of his pocket. “Besides, as long as I carry this with me, I’m fine. I wouldn’t be dead weight.”_

_“He just doesn’t want you on Security, Scott.” You smooth his hair back from his forehead. “You know you’re not meant for that.”_

_He stares into your eyes. “Neither are you, Allison.”_

_Something lurches in your chest, heavy and sharp and suffocating. You look away. He doesn’t understand, can’t understand,_ shouldn’t _understand. He still has hope, he still believes in a future with life and love and you won’t take that from him, you’d do anything to keep that alive in him when you couldn’t for yourself, you’ll die to keep him safe. You can’t go back, not from who you’ve become, but he can never…you won’t let him, he_ can’t—

“-can’t breathe,” Scott gasps.

He leaps out of his chair, digging through the pockets in Scott’s clothes and coming up empty. Scott wheezes confusedly at him while he pats Scott all over, feeling for a small piece of hard plastic – nothing. He kept Scott safe from all the Dead just to let him die of an asthma attack. He looks around the jet, mind racing, then his eyes fall on the backpack that Scott had carried here.

He drops to his knees and tears the zipper open, upending its contents onto the floor. Papers, papers, clothes, small glass vials that clink together as they fall – a dull clack. Bright red plastic. He seizes it and runs back to Scott, jamming the end into his mouth. Scott shoves his hands away and grabs the inhaler himself, turning it to put the right end into his mouth. He watches as Scott’s eyes relax, as his chest rises and falls more evenly and he tucks the inhaler into his pocket. Scott takes a deep breath and raises his eyebrows at him. “The hell do zombies know how to treat an asthma attack?”

He shrugs.

Scott drops his head back against the seat with a groan.

 

Scott’s shivering keeps him up all night.

Or, well, it would if he could actually sleep. What actually happens is that Scott eventually passes out from exhaustion, and he settles in the seat across the aisle for a long night of staring at the ceiling.

It takes him an embarrassingly long time to notice that Scott’s freezing. He focuses so much on not staring at Scott like a creep – or, well, like even worse of a creep than he already is – that he doesn’t see the tremors in Scott’s shoulders. He even puts so much effort into not staring at Scott that he doesn’t hear the chattering of his teeth. It’s not until Scott’s muted whimpers reach his ears – he almost trips out of his seat when he mistakes them for the wheezy beginnings of another asthma attack – that he remembers the nighttime drop in temperature.

Airplanes always got so cold, he remembers suddenly. He doesn’t know why he flew so often – work? College across the country from his childhood home? – but he remembers feeling at home in airports and airplanes just like this one. They were always cold, and he was always grateful for the blankets that the flight attendants gave him.

He lurches to his feet and digs in the overhead compartment. The click of the compartment opening wakes Scott, and the boy jerks abruptly upright. He pulls out a thin fleece blanket and drapes it over Scott’s shoulders, then sits back down in his own seat across the aisle and turns back to the ceiling, waiting for Scott’s breaths to even out again.

“Your eyes glow blue in the dark.”

He turns his head to face Scott. “I always knew they were bright, but I’ve never seen them at night. Not this close,” Scott continues. He shivers a little, tucking the blanket more securely around him. “They’re kind of creepy like this.”

He turns back to the ceiling and slowly closes his eyes.

After a long moment, Scott whispers, “Thank you.”

 

_“Thank you!” The boy grins at you, eyes crinkling and kind as you hand over his fallen books. They’re old, titles crinkled beyond illegibility and covers hanging off the spines, but he clutches them to his chest like the most precious treasure. He nods at you again, then disappears around the corner._

_You turn back to the street, suppressing a sigh as you try to navigate the roads of the newly-constructed Stadium. You’re seventeen years old, you’re not a child anymore; you can figure out your way back to Silver Street. All of the signs have pictures above their names – to help the children learn to read, Lydia had told you. You squint up at a picture of a wolf crossed with a picture of a solid white orb and sigh, wishing you’d thought to ask for a map._

_The walls rise high and stifling on all sides of the vast compound – they’re going to make them taller, you’ve heard, taller and wider and even more suffocating for the thousands of the Stadium’s denizens. They have to, though, have to live like fish in a bulletproof barrel because the world’s gone to hell, the Dead walk in greater numbers every day and the days of reclaiming land and homes are over. No, now all they can do is pack tighter and tighter together, burrow down in their fortress and follow orders from long-dead commanders._

_You stop in front of a house with a balcony extending over the paved road. Its design is delicate, exquisite, even – except for the machine guns mounted on either side. You can’t help but snort. It’s a ridiculous tribute to the state of the world today, desperately clinging to the past while simultaneously demolishing it to protect an increasingly bleak future._

_“It’s hideous, right?”_

_You spin at the voice, relaxing when you come face-to-face not with a soldier – Security, they call them Security now that the military’s all but dissolved – but instead with the boy from the corner. His mouth curves up in a grin. “Like, who’re they even gonna shoot with those.”_

_“Yeah, if the Corpses make it this far into the Stadium we’d all be toast,” you snort, then shrug. Your father sleeps with a gun on his bedside table, your mother with a knife on hers. “Maybe it makes whoever lives there feel better. Just a little safer.”_

_“Nah.” He shakes his head. “It’s stupid. They should’ve just torn down the balcony. I’m Scott, by the way. My mom’s a nurse in Medical; I’m in Gardening. You, uh, looked kinda lost, so I thought I’d come see if you needed help.”_

_You don’t. You’re your parents’ daughter, you’re an Argent, you didn’t make it through miles and miles of Corpses by waiting for someone else to help you. “Allison Argent,” you say, shaking his hand._

_His eyebrows shoot up. “With Chris and Victoria Argent in Security? You must be their daughter.” He spreads his arms. “So, what d’you think of the Stadium so far?”_

_“It’s…” You trail off, struggling to find something positive to say. “It feels very safe.”_

_“So you think it sucks,” Scott says with a snort. “You get used to it, though. I’ve been here for a year, and…” He shrugs. “I still think it sucks.”_

_A laugh bursts from your lips before you can stop yourself, and Scott grins. He jerks his thumb at the house with the balcony. “If you think the outside’s ridiculous, just wait ‘till you see the inside.”_

_“But-” Your mouth falls open as Scott strolls up to the front door. “We can’t just walk into someone’s home.”_

_“Oh, yeah, of course not, privacy’s still privacy,” Scott says. He pulls out a key and unlocks the door. “But this is my house.”_

_Your mouth snaps shut. Scott laughs again, eyes twinkling. “Oh,” you say, then blink at a giant statue in the lofted foyer. “Is that…”_

_“The Thinker?” Scott finishes. He nods. “Yeah. Oversized casting from the 1900s, I think. That was already there when I got here,” he adds. “General McCall’s predecessor was pretty big on preserving art, so there’s a bunch of paintings and sculptures hanging around these houses. Then my dad came along, and-” He mimes finger guns. “Up went the machine guns.”_

_“Oh,” you say, pacing around towering statue. Then, “Wait, you’re General McCall’s son?_ You’re _Scott Mc-”_

_“Delgado,” Scott says quickly. “My mom’s maiden name. Scott Delgado. It’s…” He rubs the back of his head, glancing at the floor. “Not my legal name, but it’s not like the law really matters anymore anyway, right?”_

_Not much of anything really matters anymore, really. “Hey,” you say, nudging his hand. “You said you work in Gardening, right?” He nods. “Can you tell me more about it? Lydia took me by the fields on the tour, but it was already dark, so I didn’t see much of it.”_

_“There’s not much to see,” Scott says as you follow him into the kitchen. “Gardening’s not really a priority – technically, we get all the nutrients we need from the Carbtein bars. We don’t really need to grow crops.”_

_“Yeah, but.” You sit down at the counter while Scott pours cloudy pink juice into two glasses. “Growing something new is important, you know? Like, yeah, we do need to survive, but…life matters, too.”_

_Scott looks up at you, a soft smile spreading across his face. “Yeah,” he says. “I know what you mean.”_

_You clink your glass against his with a grin, then take a drink. Then you sputter and end up spraying half of it all over the counter and Scott. “What_ is _that?”_

_Scott collapses over the counter in laughter. “Grapefruit juice,” he gasps out. “I’m sorry, I had to, the look on your face was so worth it. It’s terrible, right?”_

_You swat his arm. “_ You’re _terrible.” Scott grins and downs his glass in a single gulp._

 

He waits until his eyelids glow orange from the sunlight before he opens his eyes again. When he looks across the aisle, Scott’s already staring back at him with the blanket shoved onto the seat next him. “Why did you bring me here?” he asks. “Why…why _me?_ ”

He blinks. “To…keep you safe,” he says.

“But why _me?_ ” Scott presses. “Why me, out of everyone there?”

Because you were important to someone I – because I felt – because she – because you felt important to _me_. Because I feel like I already know you. Because I _want_ to know you. Because you _are_ important to me. The words tangle in his mind, too jumbled and confused to even bother trying to force past his tongue. He doesn’t know how to explain any of it, Allison Argent’s still-lingering memories and both of their desperations tangling and taking root in his mind. How seeing Scott made him feel something, made him want and hope and cling to _something_ , even if he doesn’t know what that something is. He can barely understand it himself; he wouldn’t know how to begin to explain it to Scott, even with a fully functioning set of muscles and nerves.

So instead, he shrugs.

Scott’s lips purse. “Shrugging is not an answer.” He sighs and looks around the jet. “So, what now? What was your plan for bringing me back here?”

Plan? Shit. He hadn’t thought of anything beyond _don’t let Scott die_. “Keep you…safe.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Scott says. “But what happens next? You can’t tell me the other zombies are just _not_ going to notice the meaty human hanging around.”

He shrugs.

“Again with the shrugging.” Scott sighs. “Look…you,” he trails off lamely. “I don’t actually know what to call you. Okay. My point is, I can’t read your mind – or, well, whatever’s left of it.”

Scott doesn’t mean anything by it, just rolls his eyes with a shrug of his own, but the words sting. Even though he knows that Scott’s just repeating words that someone else had taught to him, it hurts to hear. He frowns down at his chest. He can’t remember the last time that words actually meant enough to him to _hurt_.

“I just mean,” Scott continues, “I can’t understand what you’re thinking if you don’t tell me. So…if you have a plan for what happens next, I’d like to know it.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Scott sighs. “You don’t have a plan, do you.”

He shrugs.

Scott sighs again. “Well,” he says, rubbing his face. “Don’t suppose you have any human food around here? I’m starving.”

He nods and lurches to his feet, gesturing for Scott to follow him out of the jet. Scott freezes in the doorway when he sees the Dead wandering the tarmac. “Oh jeez.”

He digs up some sludge from the bullet hole in his chest and wipes it on Scott’s face. “Be Dead,” he says, waving his hand at the others. Scott nods and staggers forward, arms held out stiffly in front of him while he gargles from the back of his throat. He hurries to catch up. “Too much.”

Scott lowers his arms sheepishly. “Got it.”

The meals in the food court are long rotted – Scott’s face turns green when they get closer, and he stumbles away to gag into a water fountain – but the freezers in the back are still hooked up to emergency generators. Scott crows in triumph when he finds a frozen burrito and a microwave. No one notices them on the way back to the jet, but Scott doesn’t stop craning his neck around as they shuffle across the tarmac. “They seriously can’t smell the food?” he asks, eyes darting nervously to the burrito stuffed in his backpack.

“Not food to…them,” he says, shrugging. _Us_ , he should’ve said. He’s Dead, just like the rest of them, but – but with Scott, he feels different. He feels like someone. Not like anyone important, but just…someone. It’s more than he’s ever felt in his Dead life. It’s different. It matters. He _wants_ it to matter.

Scott stuffs half of the burrito in his mouth before he even fully sits down. “Oh man,” he groans. “I never thought I’d miss crappy canned beans so much. I don’t even care how many years this has been sitting in that freezer, it’s so good. Oh,” he adds, reaching back down into the backpack, “I found some dess…”

He stares down at the nubby airplane carpet as Scott pulls out a chilled glass bottle. “Did you put this in there?” Scott asks.

He nods.

“You snuck me some beer!” Scott crows, leaning over to smack his arm with an affectionate grin. “Man, in the Stadium, all we ever get is Carbtein and water. I can’t even remember the last time I had a beer. You are, hands down, the coolest zombie I’ve ever met.” He snaps the lid off the bottle and takes a long drink. “Okay, so you’re also the _only_ zombie I’ve ever met, but. I think you’ll always be the coolest.”

The corner of his mouth yanks up in a hideous attempt at a grin. “’m not…cool.”

“Yeah, I was trying to be nice,” Scott says with a snort. “I mean, I don’t know if any of your friends have told you this, but you’re kind of a packrat.” He nods at the small trinkets lining the windows. “What are these? They’re all yours?”

He nods. “Sou…venirs.”

Scott blinks, smile fading. “Souvenirs?” he repeats.

He nods again.

“That’s – huh.” Scott wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “So you…you’re sentimental?” He rolls his eyes. “Who’m I kidding, of course you’re sentimental. I mean, hello.” He gestures at himself. “You brought back a pet.”

“You’re not a _pet_ ,” he snarls, then blinks at the ferocity in his voice.

Scott blinks, too, pressing back into his chair a little. “Sorry. I was kinda joking,” he says. He swallows, then slowly wets his lips to speak. “That – that’s the most coherent sentence I’ve ever heard from you.”

He blinks.

“Like, you almost sounded like…like…”

He shrugs. “Human?”

Scott blinks, eyes wide, then his face falls. “Fuck.” He drags a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I am such an asshole.”

His brows scrunch. “You’re…not…”

“You’re human.” Scott stares into his eyes, deliberate and unflinching. “You’re human, and I forgot that, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

He shrugs.

“No, I mean it,” Scott says. “My…kind…we like to pretend you’re not human. You know, it’s always easier to destroy your enemy after you’ve dehumanized them.” He rolls his eyes. “Basic warfare. And maybe that _does_ matter when the Corpses are trying to eat us, but – but you saved my life, and you didn’t have to but you did, and I’ve still been treating you like-”

“Don’t owe…me any…thing,” he says, shaking his head. There’s no way he’s going to be able to hold up this conversation with his limited verbal skills. Time to change the subject. He lifts a can out of the backpack and looks up at Scott inquisitively. Or, well, he hopes his face looks inquisitive.

“Oh, right,” Scott says. He crumples up his empty burrito wrapper and places the can on the tray table, cutting it open with a knife. “Dessert. Fruit cocktail.” He swirls the contents of the can around, then looks up. “Don’t suppose you can eat hu – Living food, huh?”

It’s not impossible. Their bodies certainly won’t reject the food, but it’s about as nourishing as eating a block of wood for them. He shrugs.

“Shrug,” Scott says, sighing a little. He reaches into the can and pulls out what might’ve once been a peach. “Want some?”

Living food doesn’t exactly taste like anything to them – about on par with eating paste as a child, or maybe chewy cardboard. But Scott holds out the fruit with a mixture of remorse and hope, so he reaches out and lets it drop into his palm. He shuts his eyes and tilts it into his mouth, chewing its pulpy, glutinous texture before swallowing.

Scott’s watching him carefully when he opens his eyes. “Probably doesn’t taste that good without functioning taste buds, huh?” he asks, voice laced with embarrassment.

He draws his lips back in what he hopes looks like a winning grin (he knows it doesn’t). “Tastes great.”

“You’re lying to me,” Scott says, shaking his head.

He shrugs.

Scott’s mouth falls open. “Not funny,” he says, and then bursts into laughter anyway.

 

“You know I can’t stay here forever,” Scott says. “They’re gonna come looking for me. They’ll find this place.”

He nods, turning around to see Scott picking up a tiny snow globe from a tray table by the window. Scott shakes it, face dazed and transfixed all at once, and they both watch glitter swirl around a bright red bridge.

_You turn, and Scott shakes a snow globe in your face. Sparkling glitter swirls around a bright red bridge. “The Golden Gate Bridge,” he says, eyes crinkling in a smile as he holds it out to you – a gift. Scott’s barely allowed outside the Stadium walls since he isn’t Security, but whenever he goes, he always brings back little trinkets for you and your friends. Small gifts from the world you used to have._

_Isaac had wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge. “It’s not far from here,” he’d said, eyes wide with excitement. “I know, it’s just a bridge, but – you know, back before…you could walk on it? You could just walk right over the edge of the ocean. My brother took me there once when we were kids. I was so short, he had to lift me up to see over the rails.”_

_People used to climb over the rails and fall right off the edge. Fall right into the ocean, break their bodies on the water’s surface and let the tide sweep them out to oblivion. You wonder how many flung themselves away when the world began to end, when the cities became overrun and the roads were too choked with death to escape._

_You wonder if maybe that’s the only way to escape anymore._

_“Allison?” Scott steps towards you carefully, brows drawn together and hand outstretched. “Allison, are you okay?”_

Are you okay _. Your breath hitches frantic and hysterical in your throat, and you swallow it down smoothly._ I’m fine _, sits on the tip of your tongue, but, “Isaac wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge,” falls out instead._

_Scott freezes, his entire body tensing. Then he sets the snow globe back on the windowsill and nods towards the door. “The sun’s going down. We should get going.”_

_You find Scott’s gift later, tucked away in an empty pocket of your backpack. You tip the backpack upside down and watch a ribbon spill out, the exact shade of blue as Isaac’s eyes. Your own eyes sting, just for a moment, and you string the ribbon through your arrowhead and tie it around your neck._

A soft tap cuts through his mind as Scott returns the snow globe to the windowsill with a faint sigh. “I mean it,” he says, more urgently than before. “My friend, Stiles – he was hiding in a cabinet when we left. He got out, and I know he made it back to the Stadium. He’s probably told Security everything. They know I’m not Dead.” He blinks. “Or, well, they know I wasn’t Dead when I left. The point is, I can’t stay.”

He knows. It doesn’t matter that he wants Scott to stay, it wouldn’t even matter if _Scott_ wanted to stay. They both have to go back to their own worlds, go back to the way things have always been and always will be. The fear slides through him, pressing down on his chest like the arrowhead sitting sharp and heavy in his jacket, but he pushes it aside and nods at Scott. “Have to wait. Dead think you’re…new.”

“Oh,” Scott says. “And it’ll look suspicious if a freshly Dead guy wanders out of here.”

He nods.

“Great.” Scott taps a glass jar filled with brightly colored paper cranes. “So what do we wait for?”

“Few more days. They’ll…forget.”

“Forget I’m new?” Scott asks.

He shrugs. “Just – forget.”

“Oh.” Scott straightens, staring at him with an inscrutable expression. “Do you…forget…too?”

Too much. He’s missing so many years, so many months and weeks forever fallen out of his mind between one blink and the next. “Some things,” he admits. “Not as much as…”

“As the others,” Scott finishes, nodding to himself. “I figured it was something like that. You’re different.”

He stares down at his hands, thumbs fiddling awkwardly. “Not…really.”

“Yes, really.” Scott steps closer. Something squirms in his chest, like the fruit cocktail come to life and slithering up his esophagus. “I’ve been paying attention to how you talk. You know, it fades in and out, but…sometimes you’re actually really articulate. Corps – the Dead don’t talk the way you do. And you…” He trails off, gesturing at the jar of paper cranes. “Sentiment. You still have emotional connections, even if you don’t have the memories. Even where _I’m_ from, that’s rare. We just-”

Scott breaks off, brows drawing together. “I’ve seen so many people die, children losing parents, parents losing children – it happens every day where I’m from and everyone just _forgets_. They forget that things still have meaning and people still matter and…” He looks up, face inscrutable. “And you still have that. You still understand that, even if you don’t know why. That’s important. That – that _matters_ , okay? You – it matters.”

He shrugs.

“Shrug,” Scott says, sighing. He drops into his airplane seat. “It’s weird, you know. I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well, but…I don’t even know what to call you. Do you…” He trails off, sighing in frustration. “Never mind.”

“My name.”

He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe it’s the squirming in his chest, or the disappointed frustration on Scott’s face, or the sinking feeling that, for once, Scott’s the one having trouble talking to _him_. Scott shoots upright at the words, eyes lighting up instantly. “You-” he begins eagerly, then stops himself. “Sorry. I know there’s no way that you can remember…”

“D. Starts with a D.” It’s all he’s ever been able to claw from the dusty cobwebs of his memories, same as M. It’s more than most Dead, but it’s still next to nothing. He shrugs at Scott, hoping that he isn’t too disappointed.

Scott, though, stares back at him with wide eyes and his jaw hanging open. He blinks slowly. “You. You _remember?_ ”

He shrugs again.

Scott blinks again. “I always thought – they’ve always said that…” He looks back up, flashing an unsteady smile. “Sorry, I just – I never knew zombies could remember their names.”

His lips draw up into something like a grimace. “Does one letter…really count?”

“That’s one more letter than anyone’s ever thought was possible, D,” Scott says. He straightens, eyes bright with excitement. “Okay, so I know recognition’s easier than recollection. What if – what if I just ran some names by you, and you let me know if anything jumps out at you.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t really think it’ll work, but what’s the harm, right?

Scott beams so hard that his eyes crinkle, and his own chest suddenly feels sharp, somehow. “Awesome!” Scott says, and chews on his lip while he thinks. “Okay, uh…Dylan?”

He makes a face.

“Okay, not Dylan. David?” Scott tries, watching him carefully for whatever expressions his stiff muscles seem to muster up. “No. Dorian? Dmitri? Daniel? I think I knew a guy named Danny once. …Maybe. I’m not sure. There’s a bunch of years after the world went to hell that just kind of blend together in my head.” Scott blinks, face suddenly going blank. “I barely even remember what I was doing this time last year.”

He shrugs. He knows the feeling.

“Yeah, you probably get that but a hundred times worse, huh,” Scott says. “I really can’t complain.” He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “How about Daryl?”

His head tilts, and Scott grins. “Okay, we’re getting closer. Darren? No. Uh…” Scott’s eyes drift up to meet his, lower lip caught tight between his teeth. “What about Derek?”

He blinks, mind abruptly blanking.

Scott’s lip slides free as he grins. “Derek?”

It feels…it _feels_. It feels right, the way the name rolls out of Scott’s mouth to pour into his own ears. It sinks through his brain, takes root somewhere in his chest, wrapping around too-still lungs and squeezing tight. “Derek,” he tries, and it feels right as the name rumbles through his throat.

Scott beams, bouncing a little in his seat. “I don’t know if you realize how amazing this is, Derek,” he says. “I mean, this whole time we thought – but _you_ …” Scott holds his hands out towards him, laughing helplessly.

He’s feeling bold, maybe – he’s _feeling_ – so he reaches forward and places his hands in Scott’s, curling his stiff fingers slowly.

Scott squeezes his hands so tightly that he feels his bones grind against each other. “Derek,” Scott says, and his smile somehow manages to brighten even more. “Derek, you’re amazing.”

His chest tightens again, crushing and stabbing deep to leave him with a sweet, bright ache. He slides his thumb over Scott’s wrist to settle at the back of his hand, and he feels his lips draw back, stretching taut at the corners while his cheeks cramp and ache.

Derek smiles.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve never seen so much vinyl in one place since that time me and Kira broke into a record store,” Scott says, flipping through the records. “You’ve built up a pretty sweet collection, but, like.” He nods at the record player. “Why bother? CDs and MP3s are way more portable, you know. You’d have way more songs to choose from.”

He shrugs. Scott doesn’t look up from the records, back still turned. “You just shrugged, didn’t you.” He shr – “Aaand you just shrugged again.” Scott flashes a smirk over his shoulder. He turns around with a record in hand, solid red with a thin strip of blue. “No, but seriously, Derek. Why these?”

Derek pulls the record out of the jacket and sets it in the player, carefully nudging the needle into place. Dire Straits spills out, crooning about a lovestruck Romeo. “It’s…better.”

Scott rolls his eyes with a laugh. “Oh, so you’re one of those music purists.”

His lips curve into a grin even as he shakes his head. “Can see…movement,” he says, twirling his finger in a circle to mimic the spinning record. “Better.” He drops his gaze to his dirty shoes and adds, as quietly as he can muster, “Alive.”

Scott’s silent for a long moment, then a tan boot steps carefully in front of Derek’s feet. Then the other. Scott takes his hands slowly and threads their fingers together. “Dance with me.”

He blinks down at Scott’s shifting feet. “I – can’t.”

“Everyone can dance,” Scott says. “Well, not everyone can dance _well_ , but if you can move, you can dance.” He swings their joined arms. “Derek, I’ve seen you nodding along to the beat before. Don’t try to tell me you don’t have a sense of rhythm, because I know you do.”

He sighs heavily, then tries to shift his weight back and forth in time with Scott’s steps. Scott laughs in delight and steps closer, hands settling on Derek’s shoulders to help guide his movements. Derek carefully places his hands on either side of Scott’s waist, not daring to look up from their feet as muscles shift under his fingers. Warmth sears through his palms, burning its way up his arms and setting his face aflame.

Scott knocks their foreheads together. _“Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start,”_ he sings along with the record. “ _And I bet, and you exploded in my heart. And I forget, I forget_.” His ribs jump in laughter under Derek’s grip. “See? You’re a great dancer, Derek.”

Derek chances a glimpse of Scott’s face and finds himself caught, staring back into warm brown eyes crinkled in a soft smile. His head spins as the record plays on, and the song washes over them like a gentle wave.

_When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong? Juliet…_

 

“Okay,” Scott says. “Just like we practiced. Right foot on the gas, and slowly ease off the clutch-”

The Camaro lurches forward an inch and abruptly stalls. Scott drops his head back against the passenger seat before sitting up and flashing Derek an encouraging smile. “That was better this time.”

Derek doesn’t even bother answering, just grumbles a little and shifts the gear back to neutral. Wheezy huffs echo behind them, and Scott swivels around to frown at Derek’s kid buckled safely in the backseat. “Hey, don’t laugh. Driving stick isn’t easy.”

The kid growls, then tries to leap out of his seatbelt and snap at Scott’s neck. “No biting,” Scott says. He swats him away absently, then yelps as Derek seizes his kid by the throat and pins him to the backseat, teeth bared in a growl.

“Derek.” Scott uncurls his hand from the kid’s neck and pulls him back into the driver’s seat. “C’mon. It’s not his fault.”

“He tried to bite you,” Derek hisses. “ _Again_.”

“He’s just doing what he’s been taught,” Scott says, watching Derek’s kid wrestle uselessly with the seatbelt. It’s not fair, really. Most adult zombies that Derek knows would figure out the release button eventually, but the children have to be taught everything. It’s something about their underdeveloped brains, maybe, or whatever turned their eyes yellow instead of blue. He doesn’t really know what it is, but he know it isn’t fair.

Derek sighs and unbuckles the seatbelt, and the kid blinks up at him with wide, stunned eyes. Scott flashes Derek a crooked smile, then reaches back and lifts the kid out of his seat. “You wanna sit up here with us?” he asks. The kid nods quickly, lips splitting into a gruesome smile. Scott grins back and settles him on his lap. “Remember, no biting.”

Derek stares at the unlikely pair, trying to wrap his mind around Scott’s easy acceptance of this Dead child. Scott looks up and seems to understand the bare traces of confusion in Derek’s face. “I help out at the Stadium’s school, with reading and math and stuff,” he explains. His smile dims a little. “But they…we teach them to kill zombies, too. How to shoot a gun, how to throw a knife, stab through a skull. Some get tracked into medicine or construction. Most get tracked into Security.”

Scott tucks his chin into the kid’s filthy hair, watching him mumble to himself as he plays with Scott’s fingers. “We used to teach kids about stories, art, understanding the world instead of just surviving it.” He looks up to meet Derek’s eyes. “When that’s all we teach them, how else are they supposed to act?”

Derek nods. “We have…school too,” he says. He taps the back of his kid’s hand, lets him grab Derek’s finger and hold up its pale tones against Scott’s warmer hues. “Teach them to…survive.” He wonders if the Living capture weaker Dead, put weapons in their plump hands and make them learn firsthand the same way that the Dead do with their children, but the questions get too tangled on his tongue.

He wonders how long it takes the Living to forget their children after they die.

Scott’s mouth quirks in a sad sort of smile, and he nods. “Not so different after all, huh?” He looks back down at Derek’s kid, at the permanent gaps in his smile where new teeth never grew to replace the ones that fell out. “He’s too young to remember his name, isn’t he.”

He’s too young to remember _anything_ , period. Derek nods down at the gearshift, then a squelching pop echoes through the car.

“Hey!” Scott yelps, yanking Derek’s hand away from the kid. He looks up to see his pinky finger wrenched out of its socket while his kid giggles at him. Or, well, gurgles. He’s probably trying to giggle. “Breaking people’s fingers is not okay!” The kid growls at Scott, but slowly subsides under his glare. Scott turns to Derek, and his eyebrows shoot up at Derek’s smile. “You think this is _funny?_ ”

Derek shrugs. “He listens to you.”

“Barely,” Scott mutters, rolling his eyes as he reaches for Derek’s hand. “Give me your finger. I’ll reset it.”

“No,” Derek says. He shakes his head. “ _More_ …than…”

“More than they usually do?” Scott suggests, popping Derek’s finger back into its socket. Derek nods, and Scott blinks. “Oh.” He laughs nervously. “Maybe I’m just better with kids or something.”

“Not…arguing there.”

Scott smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “D’you think…if we gave him a name, do you think he could remember it?”

Oh. He starts to shrug, then stops himself before Scott looks up. “Don’t know. Maybe…?” He tries to pitch the last word into a question, into something like comfort or hope, but it doesn’t really work.

Scott’s face dims. “Yeah, dumb idea, huh.” He wraps his arms around the kid and pastes on a grin. “So, you ready to try again?”

Derek glances at his kid in Scott’s arms, then back up at Scott’s face. “Okay, I know this is the opposite of car safety,” Scott says, rolling his eyes, “But it’s not like you’re gonna kill him. Again.”

Derek shrugs and starts the car, then puts it in gear. “Remember,” Scott says, “Ease gently off the clutch, and-” The Camaro stalls. “…Better.”

 

He finds his kid with a small group of children, playing with a pile of dry bones in lieu of toys. His kid holds up the skull in front of his face, tilting his head from side to side as he squints at it, and a vague… _something_ …flashes through Derek’s mind. Alas, poor Yorick. Hamlet by The Bard. “Shake…speare,” he mumbles to himself. “William…Shakespeare.”

His kid looks up at Derek’s voice, splits his lip open all over again as he grins, and drops the skull to run over and tackle his leg. Derek smiles back, then slowly crouches to his kid’s eye level. “William?”

His kid’s eyebrows scrunch, and his mouth twists. “Hillll…” he tries, growls at himself, then tries again. “Rrrhillam.”

Derek pats his head and hopes it’s reassuring. He’s too young, too underdeveloped to manage complex sounds. Maybe if he was a Living child, maybe if his muscles grew stronger every day instead of resting stiff and atrophied – but he isn’t. Derek thinks for a moment, then tries again. Shorter. Simpler. “Liam.”

“Llllleeeee-ummm.” He blinks, shakes his head, headbutts Derek’s shoulder. “Leeyam. _Liam_.” His head shoots up, and his feet shuffle in a shambling little dance. “Liam!”

Derek’s cheeks burn as he smiles, nodding eagerly. “Liam,” he says, putting his hand on his kid’s chest. He moves the hand to his own chest. “Derek.” He moves it back to his kid’s. “Liam.”

His kid nods happily. “Liam,” he repeats, then again when Derek – slowly – straightens and takes his hand to bring him back to M. “Liam.”

“Liam,” Derek says, nodding. He has no idea if his kid understands, if he’ll remember tomorrow, or even a few hours from now, but – maybe.

His kid tugs on his arm, shuffling to a stop as they pass by Derek’s jet. He looks up at Derek, then points at it. “Cot.”

“Cot?” Derek repeats, frowning. He has no idea where his kid would’ve learned such an obscure word – maybe from the memories of a soldier’s brain. “Bed? Sleep?”

“No.” His kid shakes his head, growling in frustration. He kicks at the ground. “Sssss…cot-tuh. Sssscot.” Derek’s mouth falls open as he watches his kid punch himself in the forehead, then slowly point at the jet again. “Scott.”

Derek gapes. He _remembers_. The kid – his kid remembers Scott, remembers Scott’s _name_. He shuts his mouth and nods while his head swims. “Yes,” he says, throat even drier than usual. He points at the jet. “Scott.”

His ki – Liam grins at him. “Scott,” he repeats, satisfied, then tugs him along to M’s terminal. Derek follows him blindly, mind racing. Scott was right. Everything’s changing. Scott’s right.

He looks up at the brightly-lit sign just outside M’s terminal, squinting at the gibberish – and for a bare moment, a single letter stands out from the tangle. _A._ He blinks, and it’s incomprehensible again.

But for a moment.

Maybe.

 

_“Hey.”_

_You look up slowly from your tablet, smiling when Lydia walks towards you. “Hey. What’re you doing down here?”_

_“It’s Friday,” Lydia says, tilting her head. “We always go for drinks on Fridays.”_

_She’s right, sort of. You used to go, all six of you at six o’clock on the dot every Friday to down grapefruit juice at the bar and pretend it stung like alcohol. But you haven’t for weeks…months…not since your number became whittled down to five and you started sleeping on Lydia’s floor instead of your too-empty house. You sit back down at the desk with a sigh. “I can’t make it, Lydia. I’m busy.”_

_“Yeah, got that big hospital mission tomorrow, right?” Lydia says. She props her hip against the desk. “Pretty deep into Corpse territory. I thought the mission got scrubbed after…” She swallows, eyes dropping away from the names Lahey and Argent crossed out at the top of the mission briefing. “…Months ago.”_

_“Yeah, well, I found volunteers, and we could really use the supplies, so.” You spread a paper map across your desk and start marking off the path from your tablet. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”_

_Lydia doesn’t leave. In fact, she moves around the desk until she’s standing at your shoulder. “Smaller team than the General wanted, right?” she asks._

_“Still enough,” you say. “The General approved it and everything. Hasn’t been as much Corpse activity there lately, so it balances out.” There’s a gas station half a block from the hospital, and your pen hesitates over it. You could…if you found a car, maybe, or a motorcycle. A full tank could get you to the Golden Gate Bridge, or close enough, anyway. Your hand reaches up involuntarily to cradle your arrowhead necklace on its bright blue ribbon. A bright red bridge, deep blue water, and a long fall. You could…_

_“So you checked over the roster and everything, then,” Lydia’s voice cuts through the whispers in your head. You mark a tiny X next to the gas station and go back to tracing the mission path. “So you know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, who to rely on for what, since it’s such a small team.”_

_You set down your pen with a sigh, turning to stare up at Lydia. “I know how to run a mission,” you say. “What are you trying to get at?”_

_She crosses her arms. “So you_ haven’t _checked the updated roster, then.”_

 _“Updated?” You snatch up the tablet and skim through the list. You, Jackson, Ethan, Aiden…you stare at the two new names flashing at the bottom of the screen. “_ No _.”_

_“Stiles’ dad was a Sheriff; of course he knows how to use a gun,” Lydia says. She taps Stiles’ name on the screen. “He may not be Security-trained, but he has the qualifications. And-”_

_Blood pulses through your ears as Lydia scrolls to the last name. “He doesn’t have training. He’s not – he’s in_ Gardening _. How’d the General let him on here-”_

_“It’s a hospital mission,” Lydia says. “And he was raised by a nurse. You can only bring so much back with you; you need a medical expert. Or, well,” she shrugs. “An expendable one.”_

_You swallow. “Scott isn’t expendable.”_

_“None of you are.” Lydia’s hand clamps around your shoulder, forcing you to meet her gaze. “That’s the point, Allison, none_ _of you are expendable, and whatever you_ think _you’re doing by taking up this mission-”_

_“We planned this,” you snap. “Me and…Isaac and Dad, we…we were going to do this. I’m just finishing what we started.”_

_Lydia presses her lips together. “But you don’t have to,” she says. “You don’t…Allison, they’re gone.”_

_“I know that.”_

_“I wasn’t finished,” Lydia says. She crouches until her face is level with yours. “They’re gone, Allison, but you’re not. You’re still here, okay, and we need you because_ you’re still here _.”_

 _You aren’t, though. Your body is still here, and the locked casket of your mind is still here, but_ you _aren’t, and you know it. And Lydia knows it, and Scott knows it, and they all know it even if they won’t say it out loud. You’re not…you’re just…empty. You’re empty, you’re gone, and you don’t know how to come back from that._

 _You don’t know if you even_ want _to come back from that. It all seemed worth it, once upon a time, it seemed like there was hope and a future and life just beyond the horizon, but now…now all you can see is darkness. “I have to go,” you say, brushing past her on your way to the door._

_“I’ll see you later, right?”_

_Her voice sounds so plaintive, so uncertain and so very unlike her that you freeze. You turn around in the doorway and muster up your happiest smile. “Yeah.”_

 

“Hey.” Derek looks up slowly from tracing spirals in the dusty table. Scott stares back at him – or, more accurately, at his cheek. “When I met you,” he continues, then sets down his half-eaten burrito. “You were covered in blood. Who…” He swallows thickly and looks into Derek’s eyes. “Who did you…?”

Derek stills – or, he would still if he’d been moving in the first place. He draws in breath to speak, but for the first time since he’s met Scott, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to tell Scott that he’d killed Allison, that he’d torn her brain out of her cracked skull and devoured her memories, that he still has her arrowhead necklace tucked away in his jacket. It’s ironic, maybe, that the one time his tongue has no trouble managing his words is the one time he doesn’t want to let them out.

Scott misinterprets his wheezing silence and nods understandingly. “Right, you probably don’t know,” he says. “It was Aiden, wasn’t it. He was closest to the door, I saw him when we…” He rubs the back of his head. “Listen, I know this is a long shot, but – Allison.”

The name shoots through Derek like a hot brand, but Scott continues blithely, eyes fixed on the floor. “She was our leader, the one with the dark hair standing on the table. Do you know…” His eyes dart up to meet Derek’s, then quickly skitter away. “I just wanted to know if there’s a chance she’ll come back like – like you.”

He subconsciously lets out a breath, then coughs out a dusty wheeze when he realizes he hadn’t drawn one in the first place. He shakes his head. “Can’t…without brain.” He gestures at the blackened cut in the middle of his forehead.

“Right,” Scott says, nodding. He hesitates again, then crams the rest of the burrito in his mouth. “Okay. That’s – that’s good.” His voice tightens, and he drops his head as he blinks rapidly. “She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

He watches Scott’s hand clench tight and white-knuckled around his knee. The plastic knife snaps apart in his fist, and Derek carefully uncurls Scott’s fingers before the broken pieces stab into his palm. “I am sorry,” he says, pacing his words as steadily as possible.

“I just…” Scott shakes his head and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes. “You know what the really messed up part is, Derek? Part of me is… _relieved_. Isn’t that so messed up?” He chokes out a laugh that grates harsh and broken in Derek’s ears. “We all knew it was going to happen, she’d just changed so much, and I…I couldn’t.” He heaves a sigh, scraping his fingernails methodically across the inside of his wrist. “I loved – I love her. I always will. Even when we broke up, I never stopped loving her. But after her father…and Isaac…it’s not like she shut us out. It’s not like she ever stopped talking to us. But it was like we couldn’t understand each other anymore, like we couldn’t…”

“Communicate.”

Scott looks up at Derek, and something in his face falls. “Yeah,” he says softly. “We couldn’t communicate.” He shakes his head, gaze dropping away. “It was – she used to be so hopeful, she wanted to rebuild the world. But as the years wore on, and so many people died, it was like…it was like she died, too. Like she was still breathing, but everything that made her _Allison_ was gone.” He stares out at the dusty floor, eyes unfocused as he grips his wrist tight. “We knew it was only a matter of time, but I couldn’t…I should’ve helped her more, I should’ve found a way to get through to her before-”

His voice cuts off in a gasp, and his body shudders as tears spill from tightly-squeezed eyes. Derek carefully places a hand on Scott’s shoulder, wishing his touch could offer even the barest of warmth. “Can’t save everyone,” he says. “Not from…themselves.”

“I can’t save _anyone_ ,” Scott mumbles. His knuckles tighten around his wrist again, and Derek pulls his hands apart slowly. He doesn’t react to the curved imprints and raised scratches on Scott’s wrist, but his gaze lingers too long on the neat lines just barely visible beneath them – too precise to be an accident, too faded to be new. “Sorry,” Scott says quickly, tugging out of his grip. “Sorry, I’m just – it’s stupid, sorry.”

“Scott.” He touches Scott’s hand gently and waits for him to flinch away. “You…don’t have to…apologize.”

“Okay,” Scott says, nodding. He curls his fingers over Derek’s. “Sorr – I mean.” He stares at Derek’s shoulder, miserable and resigned. Derek turns his wrist over, tilting his head at the red scratches. Red means blood, means inflamed – too much heat. He may not be able to offer the comfort of a warm touch, but – his entire body is cold. He presses his hand over the marks, and Scott’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Oh. That’s – that actually feels really nice. Thanks.”

“Not your fault, Scott,” Derek says. He stares at Scott until he finally meets Derek’s gaze, eyes skittering and uncertain. “Not your fault. Okay?”

The corner of Scott’s mouth lifts into a bitter smile. “Shrug.”

Their heads snap up when rapid shuffling echoes from down the hall, and then Derek’s kid barrels around the corner. “Oh,” Scott says, slumping down in relief. “Hey. Holy crap, you scared the heck out of me.”

His kid skids to a stop, grinning excitedly at Derek. He announces, “Liam.”

Derek’s mouth falls open all over again. Scott blinks. “What?”

Liam jabs his thumb into his chest. “Liam,” he says firmly. He pushes his thumb at Scott’s chest. “Sscott.”

Scott gapes down at Liam’s thumb before slowly dragging his head up to meet Liam’s yellow eyes. “You know my name,” he says, voice full of wonder. He looks over at Derek’s slack-jawed stare. “He knows my _name_.”

“Liam,” Liam repeats, pointing insistently at himself. “ _Liam_. Liam!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Scott says quickly as he turns back to Liam. He places his hand on his own chest. “Scott.” He leans forward and places it carefully over Liam’s. “Liam.”

Liam beams. “Liam,” he repeats, satisfied. He grins at Derek, then drops to the floor to play with the burrito’s wrapper.

Scott stares at Derek. “Liam,” he says, pointing. “He – _Liam_ …has…a name?” Derek nods, finally wrenching his own mouth shut. Scott’s eyes light up. “He _remembered_ his-”

Derek shakes his head quickly. “Can’t remember,” he says. “Too young.”

“Oh.” Scott deflates for a brief moment before his face scrunches in confusion. “Then how did he…” He trails off, eyes narrowing as he stares Derek down. Derek suddenly feels the urge to squirm. “Derek,” Scott says slowly. “Did you give him a name?”

Derek nods, staring down at his fingers twisting nervously together. “Two…days ago.” He holds up his hand in a weak attempt at a peace sign.

“ _Two days ago?_ ” Scott’s hands clamp around Derek’s cheeks and jerk his head up to meet Scott’s gaze. “And he _remembers?_ ”

He nods feebly, and then Scott lunges forward and flings his arms around Derek. “Holy shit. Holy…that’s _amazing_.” He leans back and shares a grin with Liam before looking back at Derek. “Derek, your family is amazing.”

Derek shrugs, feeling suddenly bashful. “Your idea,” he mumbles.

“But you’re the one who actually tried,” he says. “Why didn’t you…” He looks up, face smoothing. “You didn’t tell me sooner because you didn’t know if it’d work.” Derek nods. “And you didn’t want me to know in case it didn’t.”

“Didn’t want,” Derek says, shrugging. “To disappoint…you.”

“I don’t think you could ever disappoint me, Derek,” Scott says, shaking his head with a faint laugh. Derek’s gut lurches, and his fingers itch towards the arrowhead sitting deep in his pocket. Then Liam shuffles closer and pushes a foil…well, it _kind of_ looks like a flattened circle…into Scott’s hand. “Thank you, Liam,” Scott says, tucking it carefully into his shirt pocket. He picks up the rest of the foil. “Here, lemme make you something, too.”

Derek watches as the foil changes shape under deft fingers, a long body, pointed snout and ears, four thin legs and even a small tail. “There,” Scott says, handing it to Liam. “It’s a wolf. Well, you probably don’t remember those. It’s kind of like a dog. And when the moon’s out,” he adds, holding up Liam’s foil almost-circle, “it howls to it. _Arooooo_.”

Liam cradles the wolf reverently, eyes wide. Scott pats his shoulder with a grin, and Derek’s chest feels weirdly squeezed again. He slowly stands. “Time to go back.”

He means back to the jet, safe from the other Dead, but Scott’s eyes unfocus. “Yeah,” he says, as if hearing something else entirely. He helps Liam tuck the foil wolf away in his pocket, then takes his hand as they leave the terminal.

 

“Liam,” Liam chirps to himself as Derek walks him back from school. He’s always quiet when he’s at school, shuffling in line with the other children while adults demonstrate how to tear into a rotting cadaver’s neck, but once Derek leads him away down empty corridors, he starts chattering away. Mostly just his own name; he still seems pretty excited about it. Derek knows the feeling.

“Derek!”

His cheeks still ache every time Liam calls his name, pride stabbing somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. It’s _him_ , it’s something that’s _his_ , something that _he_ did, and it matters. It – it matters. He looks down at Liam, smiles at his kid’s outstretched arms, and lifts him up. If Liam wants to be carried the rest of the way to the food court, it won’t hurt anyone. And – and Derek likes carrying his kid, propping him up on his hip and holding him in his arms like a real person with a real family to call his own. It’s a dumb fantasy, foolish, even, but he – Derek likes to pretend he could have that.

He doesn’t know if Liam talks when he’s with M. Derek hopes that he doesn’t, because – well, then M will want to know how he got a name, and then how _he_ got a name, and Derek may be more articulate than M, but she’s always been clever. She’ll figure out that there’s someone helping Derek, someone with a beating heart and warm blood and a wonderful, brilliant brain that Derek would do anything to keep safe – and Derek doesn’t know if M would understand.

She’s his best friend. (She’s his _only_ friend, which is still more than most of the Dead can even claim.) They talk, at length, in stilted syllables and dragging words and it’s always been enough, it used to be enough to understand each other. But now…now Derek has something to protect, something that matters, something that makes him want more than _enough_ , and he doesn’t know how to explain that to M.

He doesn’t know how to explain that to anyone, really. But if he can’t get M to understand, then he doesn’t stand a chance with the rest of the world.

A scream echoes from the food court – sharp, clear, pouring from a throat unclogged by gristle and gore – and Derek rounds the corner to find Scott backed against a counter by several Dead. He lunges forward with a buzzing saw – Derek has no idea where Scott managed to find a saw, but he isn’t surprised that he did – and decapitates another Dead to join the other heads already at his feet, but the rest press closer, too many for one Living to fight.

He barely registers dropping Liam onto a table before he charges forward, knocking the nearest Dead to the floor and stomping on their neck as he seizes two more by the throats and slams their skulls together.

The remaining Dead stumble to a stop and stare at him, clearly baffled by one of their own fighting against them. Derek steps in front of Scott, arms spread and teeth bared. “Leave.”

One of the Dead shambles forward, gaze fixed on Scott’s throat. Derek shoves him back. “No,” he growls.

“No?”

The first Dead he’d trampled over stands, neck cracking back into place, and glares at him. M. Shit. _“No?”_ she repeats, pushing the other Dead aside to step forward. She knocks her hand into his chest. “Dead.” She gestures at Scott. “Living. Eat.”

He pushes her hand down. “No.”

_“Eat.”_

_“No.”_

The other Dead stand awkwardly, heads swinging back and forth between them as they argue. He reaches back, almost tears his hand off on the still-buzzing saw, and grabs Scott’s hand. “Can’t…hurt him. _Won’t_.”

M’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

He glances down at their joined hands, then back up to meet M’s gaze. She isn’t looking at him anymore, though, but instead stares wide-eyed at Scott’s hand wrapped tight around his. The other Dead stare, too, previously blank faces scrunching into…something. Something different. Something _changing_. Something that… Derek says, as steadily as he can manage, “He matters to me.”

M’s shoulders hitch, as if caught mid-breath. “Don’t…understand,” she says. Her gaze drops away, staring down at her gristly hands as her brows draw together. “Don’t _understand_.”

Scott steps out from behind Derek. “I don’t, either,” he says.

M’s eyes flick down to the saw in his hand. Scott glances at Derek, takes a deep breath, then shuts it off and tosses it away from him. He tenses as M steps closer, face inches from his as she squints with bright blue eyes. She slowly draws back and shakes her head at Derek. “Still…don’t…understand.”

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it. “Can’t explain.”

She looks down at their still-joined hands, then back to Derek with something dark behind her eyes. She lifts a hand and presses gently on his chest, right over where his heart should be. Still is. _“Dead,”_ she says.

Sorrow. That’s what he sees behind her eyes. She feels _sorry_ for him. He nods stiffly. “I…know.”

“Scott!”

Liam slides off the table and runs towards them, colliding with Scott’s leg as he wraps his limbs around it. M stumbles forward, mouth falling open as she watches Scott crouch to hug their kid. She jerks her head up to stare at Derek, waving an arm at the two in a silent demand for answers. Derek stares back helplessly. “Can’t…explain?” he tries.

M rolls her head with an annoyed growl, then swats Derek away and slowly crouches next to Scott. “Scott?” she asks.

Liam beams. “Uh, yeah,” Scott says, grip tightening a little on Liam’s shoulder. “I’m Scott.” He waves awkwardly. “Nice to meet you.”

M blinks. Then a huffing growl bubbles out of her mouth, and her shoulders shake until she falls over in the closest that Derek’s ever seen one of the Dead come to laughter. “He’s…cute,” she tells Derek, eyes dancing with mirth.

Scott smiles awkwardly. “Uh. Thank you?” Liam smacks his face with a grin. “Ow. That hurt, Liam.”

M’s laughter abruptly cuts off. She scrambles forward on her knees and leans in close to Scott’s face. _“Liam?”_

“Uh.” Scott’s eyes dart up to Derek. He shrugs helplessly, and Scott sighs. “Uh, yeah,” he tells M. “His…name is…Liam?”

His voice trails up into a question at the end, but M sits back, blinking rapidly at Liam. She looks up at Derek. “Can’t…explain?” she asks, head tilted mockingly.

He holds out his arms, and Liam clambers over both Scott and M to be picked up. “I – named him.”

“Liam,” Liam chirps from his perch in Derek’s arms, tugging happily at the sleeve of Derek’s jacket.

M stands slowly. “Liam?” she tries. Liam grins, head bobbing in a too-rapid nod. M blinks and reaches forward hesitantly. “Liam.”

He beams and grabs her hand. (Derek hears the squelching snap of a finger dislocating, followed by Scott’s heavy sigh.) “Ma.”

Derek freezes. So does M, face going abruptly blank. She blinks slowly, the corners of her mouth curling up. “Ma?”

Liam flashes her a toothy grin. “Ma,” he repeats. He twists to face Derek and swings M’s hand excitedly (he hears another finger dislocate). “Ma!”

Derek nods and stills Liam’s hand before he breaks all of M’s fingers. “Ma,” he says, looking over Liam’s head to meet M’s stunned eyes.

Her gaze drops, smiling softly as she mumbles the name to herself. “Ma.”

Scott coughs and sidles closer. “Uh, if you don’t mind.” He gestures at her hand. “He kinda broke half of your fingers. I can fix it…if that’s okay.”

M nods, grinning to Derek over Scott’s head as he resets her fingers. _Cute_ , her eyebrows say, grin broadening when Derek huffs at her. She nods at Scott after he finishes. “Thank…you.” She wiggles her fingers, and her smile slowly fades. “Can’t stay,” she tells Derek. “Not…safe.”

Derek nods. He slowly sets Liam down and drags his gaze up to Scott. “Time to go back.”

 

* * *

 

Scott peers over his shoulder as the airport finally vanishes into the horizon. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m really going to miss Liam.”

Derek doesn’t answer, just focuses on pointing the Camaro in a straight line down the empty highway. He tries not to think about how tightly Scott had hugged Liam goodbye, crouching down to the kid’s level and pressing a folded paper crane into his hands. “Remember, Liam,” he’d said, “No biting.”

He tries not to think about how M practically had to pry Liam off Scott when they left, how Liam’s garbled protests and the silent unease from the watching Dead burned in Derek’s chest like a bullet.

Scott sighs and faces front again, slumping down in the seat. “Do you know how to get there?” he asks. “’Cause I don’t.” Derek nods, hoping that Scott doesn’t ask why. Most of the Dead know the way, having shuffled down the highway for months and years on hunting trips into the city. They’ve all seen the massive Stadium towering over the buildings, and in bolder trips have even come within a few blocks of its concrete walls, just close enough to catch the faint scent of fresh meat when the wind blew towards them. When he glances over at Scott, though, he just stares back at Derek in blank exhaustion. “Shrug,” Scott says.

Derek looks back at the road before he runs them off the shoulder.

It’s not exactly a long trip to the city – maybe a few hours if the Camaro was run to the limits of its speed. The speedometer needle’s broken, forever stuck at what Derek guesses was once 60 miles per hour, but he gets the feeling that the car could be going much faster than his current pace. The trip had never felt very long when he’d walked it with the rest of the Dead – but they’d never really had a purpose then, just shambled on with all the time in the world and the vague reward of fresh meat and juicy memories at the end. He sighs as the clouds darken and drench them in rain before they even reach the city limits. They picked one hell of a day to travel, especially at his Dead pace.

“We’re almost out of gas.” Scott leans over and taps the fuel gauge’s needle leaning precariously close to _E._ Derek blinks and stares down at it. _E._ His eyes travel to the other end of the gauge. _F_. And above it, a four-letter word… _f_ … _e…_. Fuel. _Fuel_.

He’s so preoccupied in reading his first word that it takes him a while to notice Scott’s shaking fingers. When he looks over, Scott’s entire body is trembling, curled up in a ball in the passenger seat and hunched over from – the rain. Rain means wet, no sun, colder temperature. The Camaro doesn’t have a roof. Scott’s freezing. “We need to find a gas station,” Scott says, teeth clacking together. “Tank’s gonna run out before we get there.”

“You’re gonna…freeze…before we get there,” Derek says.

Scott shakes his head even as he wraps his arms tighter around his ribs. “I’m fine.” Derek ignores him and heads down the exit ramp, guiding them into a quiet lane of houses that look almost peaceful. The windows aren’t even boarded up.

“Oh,” Scott says, uncurling a little as he looks around the neighborhood. “I’ve been here before. It was one of the last zones the General cleared before-”

_“-before the orders changed,” you say, outlining the map section in bright red marker. “Before the focus shifted from restoration to preservation, and we broke down the roads to expand the Stadium’s walls.”_

_“Exactly,” Colonel Braeden says, sounding faintly impressed. “Miss Argent, you’ve been studying hard for such a recent recruit.”_

_On the other side of the table, Scott rolls his eyes. “Yeah, the General would_ love _you now,” he scoffs. He crosses his arms and mutters under his breath. “Not that he cared much about us before.”_

_Colonel Braeden sighs. “Mr. McCall-”_

_“Delgado,” you correct. “His name’s Scott Delgado.”_

_Scott stares down at the table instead of meeting anyone’s eyes, jaw clenched tight. “Whatever,” he mutters._

_Colonel Braeden glances between the two of you, eyebrow raised. “As I was saying, Mr. Delgado, this is supposed to be a tutoring session between Miss Argent and myself. If you don’t want to be here, you’re free to leave.”_

_He glances at Colonel Braeden, then back to you. “I want to be here,” he says, jaw slowly unclenching. “I want to – I should know my father’s legacy.”_

Scott trails off, face clouding over. “Whatever,” he says. “All that matters is it’s safe here. None of my kind, none of yours.”

“Gas station…down the road,” Derek says, nodding. “Can go…in the morning.” Scott blinks at him as he parks in a driveway and manages to only run into the garage door a little bit. “Scott – you’re freezing.”

“I’m fi-” Scott protests, then abruptly sneezes in Derek’s face. “Fine.” He stumbles out of the car and up to the house. “I hope whoever used to live here left behind some clothes.”

Derek follows Scott through the front door, then stumbles back when a bright light flashes in his face. “Look what I found,” Scott says, holding up an old camera – a Polaroid, his mind supplies as a square piece of paper spits out of the bottom. “Figured you might like it. Add it to your vinyl collection.”

He takes the camera gingerly, peering through the viewfinder while Scott shakes the photograph. “This isn’t…vinyl.”

“It’s all old stuff, same thing,” Scott says with an indifferent shrug. He looks at the photograph and snorts. “Wow, the flash on this thing is terrible. Hey!” Scott blinks furiously in the aftermath of the camera flash, then pouts at Derek. “I wasn’t ready.”

Derek shrugs. “Candid’s better.”

“You _would_ say that,” Scott snorts, snatching the camera back. He tosses the developing photographs onto the kitchen table, then narrows his eyes at the camera’s lens. “You think we could both fit in the frame?”

Derek lifts an eyebrow. “A selfie,” he says, too disbelieving to curl his words into a question.

“Exactly!” Scott beams, then leans in close to Derek as he raises the camera. “Okay, don’t blink this time.”

“I never blink.” Derek grabs the camera and holds it out. “Longer arm,” he explains to Scott’s quizzical expression.

Scott huffs. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m short. Keep your arm steady.” Derek turns his head slowly to stare at him. “I’m just saying!”

Derek shakes his head with a snort. “Don’t blink.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott mutters, and then he shoves the side of his face against Derek’s. Derek freezes as warmth seeps into his skin, then takes a breath before pressing the shutter.

Scott pulls away as soon as the flash fades, snatching up the photograph and waving it around eagerly. “Ugh, sunspots,” he says, rubbing at his eyes. “Now let’s see-”

Derek waits for Scott to speak, but he just keeps staring at the photograph with an utterly blank face. “Scott?”

Scott blinks. “Oh,” he says, breath hitching as he laughs. He holds up the back of the photograph. “Total bust. Just got a picture of your hairline, which is nice, don’t get me wrong, but, uh, yeah.”

Derek nods, then lifts the camera. “Try again?”

“Nah.” Scott shakes his head, nose wrinkling. He scoops up the photographs and tucks them carefully into his jacket pocket. “There’s only a couple of shots left. We’ll have to raid an antique store sometime for more film.” He smirks at Derek. “Maybe we’ll even find a phonograph to add to your collection.”

“Not vinyl,” Derek calls as Scott skips up the stairs. Instead of answering, a bundle of tropical-printed cloth hits him in the face. He shakes his head and follows Scott up the stairs.

“Whoever lived here was a lot bigger than me,” Scott says, stepping out of the walk-in closet with a pair of jeans held around his waist. He lets go, and they immediately drop to the floor. “Guess I’ll just bundle up with some blankets and hope my clothes dry fast.”

Derek frowns at the thin sheets on the bed. There’s got to be a comforter somewhere in the house, or at least more sheets. “Need help?” he asks, then looks up to see Scott tangled halfway out of his soaked shirt, staring back at him with wide eyes. “With…finding…blankets.”

“Oh.” Scott tugs his shirt the rest of the way over his head. “Uh, yeah. That’d be really great.” He quickly crosses his arms over his chest, then just as quickly uncrosses them. “Uh, I think I saw a towel in the bathroom, I’m just gonna-” He darts past Derek into the hallway and all but slams the door shut behind him.

Derek takes a long breath, then starts searching for a linen closet.

 

“Derek.”

He opens his eyes for what feels like the hundredth time and looks up to see Scott peering over the bed, head just barely visible in his cocoon of blankets. “Did you hear that?” Scott whispers.

He resists the urge to groan. “The wind,” he tells Scott, lying back down on the floor. “ _Again_.”

“Okay,” Scott says, mouth twisted unhappily, and disappears under the blankets. A cracking noise echoes through the house, and he shoots back upright. “Okay, now _that_ was definitely-”

“The house,” Derek interrupts. Again. He blinks as Scott tucks the blankets tighter around him, gaze shifting uneasily. Maybe he’d grown up in a city, in more modern houses or maybe an apartment. Maybe he’d never known old houses in open spaces with creaking wood beams. Or maybe… “No Dead here,” he says, then blinks at his own words. He shrugs. “Just me.”

“Yeah, I know, I know it’s not the Dead,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “It’s stupid, it’s just…” He sighs. “Me and Stiles grew up in houses like this, and when we were little kids we always thought the noises were ghosts or monsters, you know, things going bump in the night. I know it’s pretty dumb to still think that, the way the world is now, and it’s not even like I still _believe_ it, but…” A beam creaks, and Scott jumps before shrugging sheepishly at Derek. “Just one of those things you never really manage to shake off.”

Derek thinks for a long moment. “You need to sleep.”

“I’ve been _trying_ ,” Scott sighs. “But making it through the zombie apocalypse turns you into a pretty light sleeper, so.” He sighs again. “Shrug.”

Derek nods, then gets up and climbs onto the bed. He lies down next to Scott and tucks the covers firmly around them. “…What are you doing,” Scott says.

He drops an arm over Scott’s ribs. “Keeping you safe.”

Scott ducks his head as a small grin forms on his face. “You know I don’t…I know there aren’t really any monsters out there, Derek.”

Derek nods, chin brushing against Scott’s damp hair. “Just me.”

“Derek, you’re not…” Scott begins, then trails off with an exasperated sigh. “You’re not a monster.”

Derek stares down at Scott’s hands, nestled in the small space between their chests. He blinks, slowly, then reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and lays its contents in Scott’s hand. He watches as Scott’s fingers slowly curl around Allison’s arrowhead, quiet breaths echoing too loud in Derek’s ears. Finally, Scott says, “I know.”

Derek looks up. “I know,” Scott repeats, staring down at the arrowhead. “I’ve known for a while, I think.” He curls his hand tight to his chest and tilts his head up to meet Derek’s eyes. “Thank you for telling me.”

He freezes under Scott’s gaze, mind racing. He doesn’t know how to apologize, comfort him, ask for…for something he doesn’t even deserve. He tries to push himself away, look away and leave Scott alone, but he can’t remember how to make his body move. A warm hand wraps around his, clenching tight and anchoring him in place. “Derek,” Scott says, meeting his gaze steadily, “I forgive you. I…” His eyes drop away for a moment, and something clenches in Derek’s chest. “I never felt like I needed to say it, not for myself. But I know you need to hear it, so – I forgive you, Derek. I forgave you a long time ago.”

He shifts closer, tucking his face into Derek’s shirt. “I mean what I said,” he murmurs, hot breath ghosting over Derek’s skin and burning all the way down to his too-still heart. “You’re not a monster. I know you aren’t.”

“Scott…” Derek begins, then forgets his words entirely when Scott slides Derek’s hand up to rest at the base of Scott’s skull. It’s a simple gesture, but the intimacy leaves Derek paralyzed, chilled down to his bones as his heart jolts – or, well, it almost feels like it does. In another world, he remembers hands curling over necks and fingers grazing through hair, tilting heads to meet in a loving embrace. In this world, he remembers hands snapping necks and fingers tearing through flesh, tilting heads to smash into pieces.

Scott stares into his eyes, breaths slow and even. “When I’m with you, I know I’m safe.”

Derek blinks, mind racing. He doesn’t know how to answer, so he’s surprised when he hears himself say, “Go to sleep.” He mentally kicks himself for blurting out something so nonsensical, but Scott’s eyes crinkle in a smile before he tucks himself closer. Derek sighs, closes his eyes, and waits for morning.

“You don’t have to keep your eyes shut.”

He opens his eyes slowly, taking in the cream pillow and Scott’s still-damp hair before trailing down to meet Scott’s eyes. “I figure it’s probably really awkward to just sit around with your eyes closed,” Scott says, shrugging a little.

Derek blinks. “But – I thought-”

“They’re really not that creepy,” Scott says. The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Actually, they’re actually kind of cool like this. Like my own personal nightlight, keeping me safe from all the things going bump in the night.”

“Okay,” Derek says, nodding agreeably. “Thank you.” He tilts his gaze over Scott’s head and waits for Scott to settle back down into sleep.

Instead, Scott shuffles back into his eyeline. “Hey, Derek.” He hesitates awkwardly, then takes a deep breath. “When the other Cor…the other guys were trying to eat my brains and stuff, you said. Uh. You said.” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Goodnight.”

Derek watches Scott burrow his face into the pillow and squeeze his eyes shut. His ears and cheeks are bright pink, and Derek knows it’s not just from the chill. “I said you matter to me.”

They’re close enough that he can hear the thud of Scott’s heart. “…Yeah,” Scott says, eyes dragging up to meet Derek’s. He licks his lips nervously. “Why’d you say that?”

“It’s…the truth.”

Scott stares back at him, heart pounding faster. “But _why?_ ” he asks. He tenses a little, eyes dropping away from Derek’s face. “Is it because Allison-”

“No,” Derek says immediately. He pauses. “At first – maybe. But – after…”

“Oh.” Scott relaxes a little. “Okay. Oh.” He tilts his head up, skewering Derek in place with his gaze. “Then…why?”

“Because for so long, I felt so hopeless. All I wanted was to feel alive but I couldn’t do it, I could never figure out _how_ …and then I met you. I met you, and it was like everything fell into place and you were everything I ever wanted. For so long, all I could do was survive, but Scott – Scott, you showed me how to live again.”

He tries to say it, tries to push the words out but his mouth moves too slow, tongue drags too stiffly, and the words fall apart before they even leave his throat. He stares at Scott, blinks furiously, contorts the muscles in his face to please, please, _please_ just say something, just tell him anything.

“Scott.” It comes out in a harsh exhale, more of a breath than actual speech. Derek wrenches his jaw open and tries again. “Scott – you.”

Scott stares back at him, chest heaving, eyes bright, and waits. He waits for so long, so patiently while Derek tries to form words out of rumbles and feeble groans. “I’m sorry,” Scott says finally, curling his hands around Derek’s. “I shouldn’t have…I’m not being fair. I…” He heaves a long sigh and flashes Derek a smile, too weak to reach his eyes. “Shrug.”

 _I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me_ , Derek wants to say. Instead, all he manages is a faint, “I wish…” before the words scatter apart somewhere between mind and mouth.

Scott tucks his head into Derek’s chest, right over his Dead heart. “Me, too.”

 

He dreams.

The Dead sleep sometimes. It doesn’t happen often, and never in any discernable pattern. They stop moving, lie down, shut their eyes – and sleep. Derek never could really tell how much time had passed when he woke up again; he and M tried to keep track for each other, scratching notches into the wall for every day they slept, but they’d always get distracted by hunger or just plain old monotony in the end.

But they never dream. Dreams are for the Living, dreams are for beating hearts and breathing lungs, dreams are for those who still have memories from their past and hope for their future. The Dead never dream.

And yet somehow, Derek opens his eyes in a sunny field, surrounded by vibrant green grass and scattered dandelions. Pollen tickles his nose. It’s impossible, it’s nothing like anywhere he’s been in his Dead life, and he shuts his eyes again, tries to go back to the dark house and the pounding rain and—

“Open your eyes.”

His eyes fly open at Scott’s voice, breath catching at how vibrant and _happy_ he sounds, and – he blinks at the scene in front of him, playing out like a movie he’s fallen right in the middle of. It’s different, it’s not like Allison’s memories, because he can see Allison right in front of him, Scott’s hands pulling away from her face as she lights up in a smile. “No way,” she says, eyebrows disappearing into her hair. “Scott, you didn’t.”

“Having the same name as General McCall has some perks,” Scott says. “Might as well take advantage of it.”

Allison laughs, bright and infectious and it hits Derek like an arrow to the heart, how _happy_ they look, how innocent and carefree and so full of hope. She runs forward, and Derek turns as she brushes past him.

There’s a red-and-white checkered blanket laid out on the grass, a wicker basket sitting on it like it’s been lifted straight out of a Hollywood set, and more teenagers cheer as Allison joins them. A tall boy steps forward to catch her mid-leap, spinning her in a circle and setting her down with a soft kiss. “Happy birthday, Allison.”

“You _guys_ ,” Allison says, squeezing the boy tight before skipping towards the others. “Kira! I can’t believe you actually managed to keep this from me!”

“Tell me about it,” a red-haired girl sniffs as she nudges the others aside. “You know how many times they almost spilled the beans? Move over, Stiles, actual best friend coming through.”

The tall boy hangs back as Scott approaches. “Thank you,” he says. “For setting this up, and…”

“Hey, it was your idea,” Scott says. “I just helped. And you…” He smiles at the boy, and the edges are still tight despite his warmth. “You’re good for each other. I’m really happy for you, Isaac. Both of you.”

Derek sits down in the grass and watches them celebrate, passing around sandwiches and cans of beer and chatting so animatedly about _life_. It’s infectious, tantalizing, makes Derek’s gut wind tight with longing and guilt. If this was real, if this really happened…then that makes it all the more painful to watch. It hurts to learn Isaac’s face, watch excitement blossom in Allison’s eyes, track a gentle softness in Scott’s movements that Derek’s only ever seen in faint hints.

“What if,” Scott says, lounging back on his elbows while the girl named Kira passes around fresh peach slices, “…if the world wasn’t the way it was now, what would you want to do with your life?”

“Always the dreamer,” Isaac says, patting Scott’s leg with a familial sort of ease. “I dunno, I’m always bad at Scott’s philosophical questions. Someone else go first.”

They all look at Kira. “Why’s everyone looking at me?” she asks, then sighs. “Fine, yeah, you all know I’d be a nurse. So just like what I’m doing now, except, like…”

“Less training with undead Corpses,” Stiles snorts. “Just proper, dead corpses. Lowercase ‘c.’” He drinks the rest of Scott’s beer. “I mean, I’d probably be doing the same stuff, too. Police detective, just like my dad. Except, y’know, way cooler cases and not just patrolling freaking juice bars.”

The red-haired girl squeezes her eyes shut with a groan. “Do not _remind_ me that the only bars we have now serve juice,” she says. “It’s so depressing to even think of. Allison, Isaac, please sneak in some alcohol next time you go out on a mission.”

“Can’t make any promises, Lydia,” Isaac says.

Lydia groans again. “Ugh. Well, if we lived in a world where the Dead stayed dead and there wasn’t a freaking Prohibition…I don’t know, I’d probably be working on a PhD. Doing research, changing the face of science and mathematics, looking fabulous, you know.”

“You mean working on a bachelor’s degree,” Stiles says. “Since we should be in college right now.”

“Nah. I mean, _you_ guys would be undergrads, but I would’ve finished that up ages ago.”

“It’s your modesty I love best about you,” Allison says, patting her leg fondly. “What about you, Corpse?”

Derek freezes as they all turn to face him. “Fun time’s over,” Allison says, staring at him with suddenly hard eyes. “Answer the question. What would you be if the world went back to was how it used to be?”

“I…” Words tangle in his throat, but not from useless nerves and atrophied muscles. His mind swims, and his heart hammers into his throat. “I don’t know, I-”

“Calm down, Corpse,” Isaac says. “It’s just a question. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Allison reaches up to tap Isaac’s nose. “Stop that. It means everything.”

“Well,” Derek says. He takes a breath, then sneezes from the pollen. “Well, if the world was how it used to be, it wouldn’t matter for me. I’d be dead.”

“What? That’s totally wrong, Corpse,” Stiles says. “You’d just be really old or something. Aged way older than us and stuff.”

“No,” Derek says. He spreads his arms. “I didn’t die during the apocalypse. My body’s too…intact…for that.”

“Yeah, you’re downright handsome for a Corpse,” Isaac pipes up. “I definitely wouldn’t look that good.”

“…Thanks,” Derek says. Isaac nods agreeably. “So…it doesn’t matter. I’d be dead.”

“Well, now you’re just dodging the question,” Lydia sniffs. “You could’ve easily starved to death or escaped with just a bite. Besides, we’re talking about _optimism_ here, Corpse.”

“But if the world went back-”

“The world’s _never_ going to go back,” Kira says. “So you just saying you’d be dead is a total cop-out.” She tosses a peach slice at him. “Put some effort in, Corpse.”

He stares down at the peach in his hand, juices dripping through the cracks between his fingers. “I don’t know,” he says. “I never thought about it.” He nibbles a corner of the peach, and flavor bursts bright and stinging across his tongue.

“You want it,” Allison says as she watches him gobble down the rest of the peach. “You want it _bad_.”

He does. He wants all of this, green grass and pollen and picnics and dreaming and the future, something to hope for on the horizon. It settles in his chest like an anchor, and it scares him a little just how badly he clings to it. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, shaking his head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything,” Allison says, untangling herself from Isaac’s arms. “What you want matters.”

Derek glances at Scott as Allison walks closer. “Hey, don’t look at me,” Scott says, holding out his arms in a shrug. “I’m not really here right now.”

Allison stops in front of Derek. “Scary, isn’t it?” she asks. “Scary how much you want that for yourself.”

He nods.

“It’s dangerous when you start wanting things,” Allison says, smiling faintly. “Because then it means that you have something to lose. And it’s even worse when you actually get it, because then you have something that you can ruin.” She reaches out and pats Derek’s chest, right over the empty jacket pocket where her arrowhead used to be. “Sometimes it’s better just to leave it all behind, let it stay safe and whole where you can never hurt it.”

Her touch burns into his chest, shatters bone and sears hot as a bullet. His breath comes short and stilted, head suddenly too light. “I don’t want to let it all go,” he says. He squeezes his eyes shut, drawing a painful breath through his teeth. “I can’t go back to that, I can’t.”

“I can’t, either.” Allison steps in front of him, chin lifted defiantly. She taps his forehead, right over the wound from Scott’s knife. “But I’m not ready to go yet, Corpse,” she says.

He shudders as a cold sweat breaks out over him. “Neither am I.”

The corner of her mouth lifts in a grin. “Good.”

Her hand leaves his chest, and he looks down to see blood staining his shirt, gushing out of a small hole above his heart. Cold hands wrap around his, and Allison presses a dandelion into his grip. She lifts the flower between their faces. “Make a wish, Derek.”

He closes his eyes and blows the flower apart. When he opens his eyes, sunlight shines into his eyes. Derek squints and sits up, moving out of the sun’s rays, then blinks down at the rumpled sheets and empty bed.

He runs outside. The driveway’s empty, still wet from last night’s rain with a long patch of dry cement where the Camaro had been parked. Derek skids back into the house, looking for any traces of Scott, and then he sees the Polaroid photos on the kitchen table, lying facedown over a handwritten note. Abruptly, Allison’s words resurface in his mind.

_It’s dangerous when you start wanting things, because then it means that you have something to lose._

He punches his fist into the wall. He wrenches the chairs to pieces, smashes the grandfather clock, hurls the framed artwork to the floor. He drives his fist through the window, tears the glass free with his bare hands and screams, screams out to the empty blue sky as too many thoughts and feelings and too-useless words fester and bubble through the sealed trap that is his mind. To think that he’d ever dreamed he could have more, that he could ever be more than a monster meant for nothing but death – he clenches a shard of glass in his hand and wishes that just this once he could bleed, that just this once, just this one time, he could cry.

The table crashes to the ground as its legs finally give out. The note flutters towards him, landing neatly on his hand. He turns it over and stares down at it, the words painstakingly large and neat as if Scott had thought – as if Scott thought that he’d actually be able to read. He snorts. Of course he can’t read, reading’s for the Living, reading’s for remembering the past and writing the future and he doesn’t have either, never will.

He picks up the photographs with a sigh, bracing himself as he flips over his picture. Pale, gray-tinged skin, nearly as white as the photograph’s borders. He snorts. His hair doesn’t look quite so filthy when it’s as small as his thumb, and even his black jacket looks artfully worn instead of completely disgusting. His blue eyes glow even more in the flash, freakishly, monstrously. Scott had scribbled something along the bottom, but he can’t read it, of course.

Scott’s photo – Scott. He’d like to pretend it’s wonderful, but it’s really just downright awkward. Scott’s caught mid-blink, mouth hanging open with his left eye squeezed shut. Even as ridiculous as he looks, though, his smile’s still as warm as ever, and he huffs a laugh at Scott’s frozen grin. He puts the photos inside the note to fold them away, then pauses.

The writing at the bottom of Scott’s photograph matches the writing at the bottom of the note. Three garbled letters, and then two identical ones. Identical. He can tell that they’re identical, that they’re – they’re the same letter. He can tell that much. His eyes dart back and forth between the words, trying to will his brain into making sense of it – and then the letters fall into place before his eyes. He reads them, rereads them, shuts his eyes, looks away, spins in a circle and reads them again, and they come out the same every time. _S-C-O-T-T_.

Derek smiles. “Scott.”


	3. Delgado

The Camaro dies a half-mile out from the stadium.

It’s for the best, probably. Who knows what General McCall would’ve done with the car, and Scott – well, he took it from Derek in the first place, but he likes to think that Derek could get it back, somehow.

He wastes several hours walking to a gas station and filling up the Camaro with a few gallons, and then a few more gallons. By the time he finally parks the car on the side of the road and turns towards the Stadium, the sun beats down hot on the back of his neck. Scott sighs, tightens the straps on his backpack, and trudges on.

He knows that he should’ve waited until morning to leave. He knows that he should’ve told Derek goodbye to his face instead of sneaking out like a thief in the night. But…but if he’d driven here with Derek, would Derek have let him go? Or would Derek have followed him right up to the Stadium walls, where the soldiers would’ve seen nothing but a Corpse to kill on sight?

The thought of leaving Derek in the neighborhood, of watching his blankly melancholic face slowly fade as Scott drives away is even worse. (It isn’t actually worse. Derek being dead – not Dead, but actually _dead_ – is infinitely worse than Derek looking vaguely sad.) No, it’s better that he left when Derek couldn’t watch him go, that he left Derek sleeping and peaceful with a smile on his face. It’s easier. The coward’s way out, for sure, but Scott’s earned the right to be a little cowardly.

He holds up his arms as he reaches the walls, walking as smoothly as possible and shouting up to the nearest window. “My name is Scott Delgado! I’m Alive – I’m human!”

“Delgado?!” The outer doors swing open near-instantly, and a soldier in full riot gear waves him in while two more track his movements with their rifles.

“That’s far enough,” the soldier says, and holds up a scanner to Scott’s eye. It beeps, and he pulls off his helmet. “Damn, Scott,” Parrish says, grinning at Scott as he leads him through the inner doors. “After what Stiles told us went down at the hospital, we thought you were a goner.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Lieutenant,” Scott says, flashing him a smirk. He coughs. “So, can I-”

“General McCall’s already on his way,” Parrish says, and at least sounds apologetic about it. “Technically, you _do_ need to submit a mission report, so-”

_“Scott!”_

Three soldiers are abruptly shoved to the side, and then Stiles barrels into view and tackles Scott in a hug. “Holy shit, you’re alive. You’re okay, okay, okay. Holy shit.”

“I think you just broke my ribs,” Scott gasps out. Stiles doesn’t loosen his grip at all, and Scott settles for patting his back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“That’s _my_ line,” Stiles chokes out. “Shit, Scott, I thought – I wanted to look for you, but Melissa had me on bed rest and then General McCall was all _blah blah blah protocol_ , even for his own _son_ -”

“Can’t waste resources,” Scott says. “Can’t risk lives unnecessarily. No exceptions. Oh, speaking of.” He lifts a shoulder. “Brought back the medicine from the hospital. Some of the bottles smashed, but most of them should be intact.”

“That’s awesome,” Parrish says. “No one else can handle your backpack until it’s been inspected, so I think that’s an urgent enough reason to send you to-” His eyes widen at something over Scott’s shoulder, and he quickly snaps to attention.

Scott turns around with a sigh and sees General McCall striding towards them. “Hi, Dad.”

“Scott.” General McCall stares down at him, lips pressed into a hard line. “It’s good to see you.” He nods at Parrish. “I’ll take it from here, Lieutenant.”

Parrish hesitates, eyes darting to Stiles. “Sir, he brought back medicine from the hospital. It needs to be inspected and sent to Medical.”

General McCall’s eyebrows shoot up. “He did?”

Scott resists the urge to roll his eyes at the surprise in his father’s voice. “Pretty shocking I didn’t turn out to be asthmatic dead weight on my first mission, huh,” he mutters.

Everyone freezes for a moment, then, _“Shitttt,”_ Stiles groans, slapping a hand over his face as General McCall turns slowly towards Scott.

“Your _first mission_ , Scott?” he says, voice cold with fury. “You mean the mission you were only allowed on as a last-minute replacement for Lahey? The mission that was, directly because of your involvement, unevenly stacked with inexperienced civilians and resulted in four deaths? That mission?”

Scott’s hand curls into a fist at Isaac’s name. He lifts his chin and stares back at his father. “Well, I apologize for not making it five deaths. Sorry I’m still around to inconvenience you.”

General McCall sighs. “That’s not what I meant, Scott, and you know it.” Scott doesn’t bother answering, just starts to shrug out of his backpack. “Scott, look at me when I’m talking to you,” General McCall orders. The strap catches on Scott’s arm, tugging his sleeve down. _“Scott-”_

“Whoa!” Stiles yells, hand closing around Scott’s bare wrist. “Do I see a scratch?”

The soldiers’ heads snap up, and even General McCall leans back involuntarily. “What?” Scott asks.

Stiles holds Scott’s wrist up to his face and peers at his completely unmarked skin. “Yeah, that definitely looks like a scratch. Healed over, but definitely broke the skin.”

Parrish steps forward, helmet tucked under his arm. “He tested negative, Sir,” he tells General McCall. “But if he has an injury that passed the first layer of skin, protocol states-”

“Immediate quarantine until cleared by Medical,” General McCall finishes, glaring at Stiles.

Stiles flashes him a sunny grin. “I already touched his bare skin, so I’ll have to accompany him to quarantine. Standard procedure, _Sir_.”

General McCall sighs. “Colonel Braeden will escort you both to Medical,” he says. “The rest of you, back to your posts.”

Braeden sighs at them as they clamber into the back of the truck. “Just like old times,” she says dryly as she drives them to Medical. “You’re the smartest idiot I’ve ever met, Stilinski.”

“You say the sweetest things, Braeden,” Stiles says, high-fiving her through the sealed partition. “Although I didn’t see _you_ doing anything to try to break up the fight. Thought some of the new soldiers were gonna piss their pants.”

“We weren’t fighting,” Scott protests.

Braeden and Stiles exchange glances. “Sure thing, Scott,” Stiles says neutrally.

“Scott.” Braeden meets his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “He really was worried about you when you were missing.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“He led the search party himself.”’

Scott blinks, caught off-guard. “The General’s not supposed to lead auxiliary missions. They’re not important enough to risk his life.”

“Well,” Braeden says, “This one was for him.”

Scott stares down at his clenched hands. “Yeah,” Stiles says loudly, “and that doesn’t give him a pass for being an emotionally stunted and mostly absentee father before, during, _and_ after the zombie apocalypse.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Braeden agrees. She slows to a stop in front of Medical and waves for the quarantine officers to take over. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

Scott follows Stiles into the quarantine zone. He turns back to Braeden before she drives away. “Thanks.”

 

Stiles drops onto the couch with a long sigh. “Thanks for getting us out of quarantine, Kira.”

“Thank Braeden,” Kira says, tapping at her tablet as she sits down. “She’s the one who sent ahead a warning for Plan Alpha. You could’ve given me a heads-up, you know.”

“Plan Alpha?” Scott asks.

“Yeah, Stiles came up with a bunch of plans to get you away from General McCall after the first time you guys fought,” Kira says, shrugging. “In Plan Beta, we pretend to kidnap Lydia.”

“In Plan Omega, we find a barrel of gasoline and-”

“I don’t think I want to know,” Scott says quickly. “Thanks, but…thanks.”

Kira taps her tablet one last time and looks up. “Alright, you’re all set up for a few days in treatment at your house. You were dehydrated and malnourished when you came in, so I want to make sure that you’re back to your normal health before Security starts bothering you to report in.”

“Thanks,” Scott says. He grins. “Those were some nice touches with the dehydration and stuff. Makes it more realistic.”

“What – Scott, I didn’t make that up,” Kira says. She holds up her chart. “You _were_ dehydrated when you came in. It wasn’t severe, but I haven’t been making you drink those solutions just for fun.”

“Oh.” Scott blinks at the bottle in his hand. “I thought that was just standard protocol.”

“Yeah, if you’re _dehydrated_ ,” Kira says. She opens her mouth to continue, but the back door opens.

Scott jumps to his feet. “Mom!”

Stiles leaps up to grab the bags that fall from Mom’s hands as she hurries forward. “Scott,” she murmurs into his cheek, cradling his head gently in one hand. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Stiles sets the bags quietly on the table while Kira stands. “We’ll just be in the kitchen,” he says, and the two close the door behind them as they leave.

Mom pulls back to look at him, clasping his head between her hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, they wouldn’t let me into quarantine-”

“I know,” Scott says, nodding quickly. “I know, it’s protocol, um…” He swallows around an abruptly closing throat, struggling to wobble his mouth into a smile. “I…Mom, I thought I’d never see you again, I…”

Mom pulls him in close, tucking her chin firmly over his head and wrapping him tight and warm in her arms. “You’re here now, Scott,” she says, voice calm and steady. “You’re here now, and you’re safe, and that’s all that matters.”

“When I was the only one left, I thought…” He tries to swallow down the lump in his throat, but he can’t stop his voice from shaking or the tears that spill hot and burning down his cheeks. “I couldn’t even get to Stiles, I thought he was…everyone was…I was the only left, and it’s my _fault_ -”

“Scott. Sweetheart, look at me.” Her hands press into his shoulders. He reluctantly drags his head up to meet her gaze, her eyes soft and warm and uncompromisingly firm. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Scott.”

He shakes his head, forcing the tremors out of his voice. “I was supposed to protect them, I was supposed to look out for my team. That’s what you do, that’s – that’s what Security does, and I didn’t – I couldn’t – I didn’t-”

Mom squeezes his shoulders. “Everyone knows what they’re getting into when they join Security,” she says, nodding gently. “Everyone. Everyone on the team knew what could happen. Scott, you…” She sighs, brows drawing up into a sad sort of smile. “You can’t save everyone.”

“I couldn’t save _anyone_ ,” he says. His eyes unfocus, hands clenching uselessly as a jagged emptiness claws deep in his chest. “I couldn’t…I just let them…they’re all _gone_.”

“Oh, Scott.” She guides them over to the couch, sitting down and holding him close in her arms. “I know.”

“They’re gone,” he gasps out, burying his face in the crook of Mom’s arm. She strokes his back, gentle and soothing, the way she did when Harley’s family never made it out of town, when Boyd and Erica disappeared before they reached the Stadium, when Isaac went out on a mission and his team came back empty-handed. It’s a familiar routine for them now, and it hurts more and more every time. “Mom, they’re – they’re all gone and I’m still here and I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve to be here when they’re not, I…”

Mom tucks her chin over his head, cradling his neck gently with one hand. “Why don’t you think you deserve to be here?”

“Because.” He swallows, drawing a shuddering breath. “They were protecting me, and I was supposed to protect them, too, and I didn’t, I couldn’t, they all died and I couldn’t protect them. I was just the last one, that’s the only reason I made it when they didn’t, and it could’ve been one of them, it could’ve been – it _should’ve_ been-”

“Scott.” Mom pulls back, hands firm on his shoulders as she looks him in the eye. “That’s beyond your control, and you know it. You can’t control life, and you can’t control death. No one can.” She cups his face with one hand, rubbing his arm with the other. “You’re still here, and they aren’t, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.” Scott nods. “And you don’t think that you deserve that.” He nods again. “So do something to change that.”

He shakes his head helplessly. He’s exhausted, and his entire body aches, and he just wants to lay down and sleep forever, until he sees all of his friends and family again. “How do I do that?”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She presses a kiss to his forehead. “You don’t have to do anything to earn your right to live – you can’t. None of us can. We can’t give time back to those we’ve lost. All we can do…all we can do is make the most of our own time. However much of it we have left.”

Scott nods slowly, mulling over her words. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” She squeezes his hand with a smile, then moves to the table and drags it closer to the couch. “Got all your stuff from decontamination. Deaton said we should’ve just thrown out your clothes, they were pretty filthy, but I thought you’d want them.”

He nods, laughing a little. “Yeah. Thanks, Mom.” Scott pulls the jacket on as soon as she hands it to him. He probably looks ridiculous wearing a stained jacket over plain hospital scrubs, but…there’s something comfortable about being wrapped up in its worn denim again. No, not comfortable, _comforting_. It’s grounding, somehow, while everything else around him still feels more than a little surreal.

Mom smiles, then hands over a small glass jar. “Oh, and Mason wanted me to give this to you.” Her mouth twists. “He’s only nine, so you won’t be able to see him for a few days until you’re completely cleared by Medical. Same for Lydia, since he lives at her house.”

Scott nods. He lifts the jar and peers at the small folded cranes inside. “He made me paper cranes?”

“Yeah, from that story you read together,” she says. “Said something about how if you fold a thousand paper cranes, then your wish will come true. He started making them when Stiles came back and told us…” Mom trails off with a twitchy shrug. “Lydia helped him make a couple each day, so there’s ten in there. One hundredth of a wish, I guess.”

He squints at the paper cranes, just barely making out smeared fractions and crossed-out algebra on their wings. “That was really nice of him. Could you tell him I said thank you, and I’ll see him and Lydia soon? Oh, and…” He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, his hand closing around cold, sharp metal. “Lydia should have this.”

Mom stares at the arrowhead in Scott’s hand. “How did you get that?” she asks.

“From…” Scott begins, then pauses. “The…the person who saved my life.”

“The Dead who took you back to the airport.”

Scott sighs. “He saved my life, Mom. If he hadn’t, I would’ve gotten ea-”

“I know.” Her hand squeezes tight around his wrist. “I know. I just…” She lets out a shaky breath. “It’s a little hard to believe, I guess. I’m still getting used to it.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t true,” Scott says, shrugging helplessly. He holds out the arrowhead, then pulls it free from the ribbon stained stiff and red. “Could you give this to Lydia? I should give it to her myself, but she’s had to wait long enough for it, and…” And he still doesn’t know how to answer the questions that she’ll have when she sees it, he doesn’t add. And he’s spent so much of the past week afraid for his life that he isn’t sure he can be brave anymore, even for something as simple as this.

Mom nods in understanding. “I will,” she says, and tucks the arrowhead carefully into her pocket. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, then smiles as she picks up Scott’s backpack. “Could you help me inventory what you brought back from the hospital?”

Mom could definitely categorize the medical supplies much faster without him, but he appreciates her gesture all the same. It’s good to have an excuse to spend more time with her before she’s needed back at Medical – she’s always needed at Medical, there are always too few doctors and nurses now – and he has to sit around with only his own thoughts to keep him company. He hands over tiny glass vials with even tinier labels, digs through the disorganized pockets of his backpack, and listens to Mom chatter on about Kira’s ongoing training in Medical.

“She’s getting a lot better, though,” he says as he reaches for another box in his backpack. “She didn’t even stab through my vein when she was drawing – oh, cra – crud.”

He corrects his language hastily as the box flaps open, spilling its contents into the backpack. Mom snorts fondly as he digs through tangled cloth for the small foil packets. “Well, that would do it,” she says, poking at the box’s torn-open side. “I guess this one was open when you guys found it, but as long as the individual blades are still sealed, it should be fine.”

“Yeah, if I can find them all again,” Scott mutters. He yanks two bandanas and a thin shirt out of the backpack, dumps out a fistful of scalpel blades, then frowns when an oversized shirtsleeve at the bottom of the backpack refuses to budge. He frowns, tugs harder, then realizes that it’s inexplicably wrapped around something large and heavy.

Mom snorts as he lifts the object out of the bag. “That tropical print is _hideous_ , where did you even find that?” she asks, then blinks when Scott unwraps the shirt. “…Huh. Where’d you find _that?_ ”

“It’s a Polaroid,” Scott says, staring down at the old-fashioned camera. He didn’t…he’d left it on the table that night, hadn’t even given it a second thought as he’d dashed out the door. How did…

“Yeah, I can see that,” Mom says. “That didn’t come from the hospital, did it?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “It was…in the suburbs, on my way back.”

“Oh.” Mom nods, smiling easily. “I get it.”

He blinks. “You do?”

“You always bring back gifts from your trips outside the Stadium,” Mom says. “Like Stiles’ band posters, or Lydia’s makeup, or that giant cardboard cutout of Superman you found for Kira.” She shrugs. “You know. Little souvenirs.”

“Oh.” _Souvenir_. The word clangs around his mind, slower and hesitant in a soft sort of monotone. Small trinkets perched by the windows of a cramped jet, spinning records pouring music into too-still air. Scott swallows, nodding jerkily. “Yeah.”

Mom picks up the camera, turning it in her hands before setting it back down. “I’m glad you brought back something for yourself, for once. I know you can’t really use it without more film, but…” She shrugs, looking past his shoulder with a faint grin. “I’m glad that you found this.”

He follows her gaze to the bookshelf filled with Scott’s badly-drawn sketches. More than half of the portraits in the sketchbooks are gone – dead. He still doesn’t know if it hurts more to try to draw their faces from memory, or to see their pictures later and remember how they’d let him draw them when they’d still been alive. “Yeah,” he says, “Photographs would be a hell of a lot better than my crappy drawings.”

“Scott.”

“Cruddy drawings.”

She rolls her eyes. “I meant…” She shakes her head, laughing softly. “I’m just glad you’re still gathering memories, I guess. You haven’t really picked up your sketchbook since…” Since Isaac, and since Chris Argent, and since Allison changed more and more until he didn’t even know how to talk to her anymore. “…I was worried about you.”

Scott nods, staring down at the Polaroid. “I just…sometimes it’s easier to focus on surviving instead of trying to live, you know. I guess I kind of…forgot…for a while.”

“I do that sometimes, too.” She smooths a hand down his arm, then sighs at the clock. “I have to head back. If you want, I can ask them for more time-”

“No, I’ll be fine.” He shakes his head. “I _am_ fine. Really, Mom. I am.”

She smiles, watching him carefully as they gather up the medical supplies. “I guess getting rescued by the Dead really changes your perspective on things, huh?”

He laughs helplessly. “You could say that.” Mom smiles, hugs him one last time, then heads for the door. “Mom?”

She turns. “Yes, sweetheart?”

He swallows. “Do you think…” He presses his lips together, then bursts out the words before he can lose his nerve. “Do you have to be Alive to be able to live?”

Her head tilts slowly, and he watches understanding dawn on her face when she catches the distinction in his words. “No,” she says, smiling faintly. “No, I don’t think I believe that anymore.” She steps forward and hugs him tight. “Whatever you do to make the most of your time, Scott, I want you to know that I’m very proud of you. I’m so proud of you, Scott, and I love you, no matter what.”

He clutches her tight, throat closing as tears press at his eyes. “I love you too, Mom.”

 

* * *

 

He can’t sleep.

It’s the house, maybe, with its open windows and thick walls that he’s known for years, not a lurking shadow or mysterious corner in sight. Or maybe it’s the neighborhood, packed tight with housing yet quiet as the grave. Or maybe it’s the Stadium itself, with its towering walls cutting out the breeze and leaving the air to hang thick and quiet in the darkness.

Or maybe it’s the heartbeats thudding throughout the house, the soft breaths and faint snores that hammer loud and clanging in Scott’s ears. He shoves the blankets towards Stiles and flips his pillow to a cooler side, but the bed still feels so overheated, almost suffocating in its warmth. He slips out of bed as silently as possible, but Stiles jerks awake almost immediately. “Scott?” he croaks, twisting around. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry, everything’s fine,” Scott whispers, listening carefully for movement through the wall. Kira’s as light a sleeper as they are, after all. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Stiles shuffles over to Scott’s side of the bed, tucking his chin over the edge as he watches Scott settle down on the floor. “Can’t sleep?”

Scott shrugs. “The bed’s…too soft,” he says. “Just having some trouble getting used to it again.”

Stiles nods. “D’you wanna talk about it?”

“Not yet.” Scott shakes his head. “You should get some sleep. No offense, man, but you look like hell.”

“Yeah, you should talk,” Stiles retorts, snorting. He swallows, fiddling with the sheets for a moment, then asks, “You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

The weak moonlight shines across Stiles’ face, casting dark shadows down his cheeks and under his eyes. He’d had to be the one to tell everyone. Scott had been taken on the long journey to the airport, certain that each new breath would be his last, but Stiles had had to flee the hospital on his own. He’d been the one to search the bodies in the room, gather the scraps of clothing that had been left behind, and he’d been the one to tell everyone when he finally made it back to the Stadium.

Scott had always known that Stiles would make it back to the Stadium, that he was alive and safe even if Scott couldn’t get to him yet. But Stiles had never known that about him. He reaches up and wraps his hand around Stiles’. “I promise I’ll still be here in the morning, Stiles.”

Stiles huffs a shaky laugh, dropping his chin over their clasped hands. “Yeah, you better be. I’ll be so pissed if you just disappear on me in the middle of the night, Scott Delgado, you don’t even know.”

Guilt stabs into his gut, sharp and stinging. He musters up a weak smile and hopes that the darkness hides it well enough. “Can I have my hand back?”

“Nope.”

“My arm’s gonna fall asleep like this.”

Stiles yawns and tucks Scott’s hand further under his chin. “Deal with it.”

Scott doesn’t bother trying to tug his hand free, not even after Stiles’ breaths even out to faint snores. He sighs and stares around the dark room, too jittery to even try falling asleep. The collar of his shirt digs hot and itchy into his skin, and he’s shuffled halfway out of it before he remembers his trapped arm.

The shirt slides down Scott’s arm and drops over Stiles’ face. Stiles grunts, then slowly cracks his eyes open. “The hell’re you doing.”

“It’s hot,” Scott whispers. “And the collar’s all itchy.”

Stiles grumbles to himself, then reluctantly lets go of Scott’s hand. “Try to get some sleep,” he mumbles, then passes out on Scott’s pillow.

Scott shakes the pins and needles from his freed hand, then gingerly climbs to his feet and sits at the table by the window. He unzips his backpack slowly, setting aside his inhaler before carefully lifting out Liam’s gift. He holds up the oblong disc against the moon with a grin, tilting it back and forth to catch the light in the crumpled foil. He reaches into the backpack again, then freezes when his fingers brush against something smooth and sharp.

He draws out the single packet with shaking fingers. It’s familiar in his hand, thin as paper and sealed tight. He can just barely feel the item inside as he runs his finger along it, curved and unyielding, narrowing to a sharp point. A scalpel blade. One that he must have missed when the box had spilled into his backpack. He swallows, fists clenched and staring anywhere but his wrists, then he grabs the packet and shoves it into his pocket.

He’s weak. He knows. The packet burns a hole through his pocket, sitting hot and accusing next to his inhaler, but he can’t put it back. He…it just hurts too much, sometimes. Sometimes, everything hurts too much, and he doesn’t know how else to make the pain stop.

He unzips the backpack’s front pocket and lifts out Allison’s ribbon. It’s almost entirely stained red, stiff and crackling with only a small strip of blue at one end. She’d made the pain stop by shutting it out altogether – by shutting out _everything_ , everyone, and Scott…he should’ve found a way to help her. He should’ve…he just should’ve.

He stands, head jerking towards the bed when the chair scrapes against the floor. Stiles doesn’t stir, doesn’t so much as twitch in his sleep, and Scott walks determinedly to the bookshelf. He yanks out a book at random – an illegible copy of Shakespeare, he can tell from its cover, and one of his tragedies at that. Abruptly, he feels the ghostly sensation of a hand pressed to his wrist, cool fingers smoothing over inflamed skin, and he rubs his wrist with a shiver. He shakes himself, shoves the scalpel packet between its pages, and snaps the book shut. He puts the it back on the shelf, starts to step away, then pauses.

The Polaroid camera stares back at him from the edge of the shelf. Derek had given it to him. A gift, like Liam’s foil moon, except – except Derek hadn’t told Scott about it. He’d just hidden it away somewhere he knew Scott wouldn’t look until he was already gone. Scott carries the camera back to the table and tries to make sense of its presence, tries to understand what Derek meant to tell him.

He reaches into the backpack’s front pocket, pulling out the last Polaroid picture and laying it on the table. Their heads fit perfectly within the picture, with the tips of Scott’s hair curling just along the edge of the frame. Pressed close to Scott’s darker skin, Derek’s face stands out as white as the photograph’s border, but his eyes are lowered, face angled down enough that the flash only picked up pale lids and dark eyelashes. Caught mid-smile, turned towards Scott with a gentle curve to his lips, he looks…he almost looks…

Happy. Hopeful. Scott sighs, dragging his eyes over his half of the photograph. Together like this, squashed together in a split-second of contentment, the two of them almost look alive.

He stands up from the table, shaking out stuff muscles as he walks to the window. The paper cranes in Mason’s jar gleam in the moonlight, and he grins at them as he picks up the jar. One hundredth of a wish. It isn’t much, but…

…but it’s still more than he could have even dreamed. He unscrews the lid and drops the photograph inside, then sets the jar back down on the windowsill and waits for the sun to rise. “ _You know the movie song,_ ” he sings under his breath, barely loud enough for even his own ears. _“When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong? Juliet…”_

 

When Stiles wakes, groaning about the sun stabbing him in the eye, he finds Scott still sitting at the window with the Polaroid camera clutched in his hands. “The hell’s that?” he mumbles.

“It’s a camera,” Scott says, still staring into its lens. “One of those old ones where you take a picture and it prints it right in front of you.”

“Cool, vintage,” Stiles says with a yawn. “Why’d you bring it back with you?”

“I didn’t,” Scott says. Stiles snorts. “Derek gave it to me.”

Stiles snorts again, then abruptly falls over in a coughing fit as Scott’s words catch up to him. “The _Corpse?_ ” he coughs out.

“Yeah. He must’ve snuck it into my backpack when I wasn’t looking.” Scott huffs out a laugh. “He did that once when I was getting food, actually, he snuck a beer into my backpack and I didn’t even notice until…” He trails off when he sees Stiles’ slack-jawed stare. “…What?”

“The _Corpse_ snuck you _beer_ ,” Stiles says flatly.

Scott nods. “Yeah.”

“And he gave you a…” He flaps his arm at the camera. “…vintage camera thing? Just ‘cause?”

“Well…yeah.”

Stiles stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head. “How in the…I just don’t get how a _Corpse_ could even…they don’t feel, Scott.”

“Derek does.”

“Derek d – Scott, you stabbed him with a knife and it didn’t even hurt him, okay, he _can’t feel_.”

The door opens, and Kira walks in with a sigh. “There’s a difference between physical and emotional pain, Stiles,” she says. “…Although we’ve never been able to record a Corpse experience emotional…anything…either.”

“So, basically, you just proved my point,” Stiles says.

Scott sighs. “He…okay, so I told you he lived in one of the jets, right? You should’ve seen – he had so much _stuff_ , okay, like, like he had _boxes_ of vinyl records and he played them all the time-”

“On what?” Stiles asks, face scrunched in confusion.

“On a record player. I don’t know what they’re called,” Scott says, waving a dismissive hand. “And the records – he organized them, okay, they were organized by color, red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-black-and-white. He did that, and I know he did because I put away a record out of order once and he fixed it. Like, he made a conscious decision to organize them in a way that he could identify them. And…” Scott trails off as he sees Mason’s jar of paper cranes with the photograph tucked inside.

“…And?” Kira prompts after a long moment.

“He…kept things,” Scott says, turning away from the jar. “I don’t know why, but he did. Like, he had a jar full of paper cranes, like the one Mason gave me, and…he had a snow globe of the Golden Gate Bridge. Lots of little things like that.”

Stiles and Kira blink at him. “So,” Stiles says, voice flat, “you’re telling me you got kidnapped-”

“Saved, Stiles, he _saved_ my life by pretending I was Dead.”

“-by the one packrat Corpse in the entire world?” Stiles finishes.

“Well, maybe lots of Corpses are packrats and we just don’t know,” Kira says, shrugging.

“No, I saw a lot of other Co – Dead when I was there,” Scott says. “He was the only one who…” He trails off, sighing in frustration. “He talked to me, you know? I could…I could actually communicate with him. I…we actually understood each other, you know? We – he _understood_ me.” Scott laughs. “He was pretty funny, actually, in this dry, sarcastic sort of way-” He looks up to see Stiles and Kira staring at him with identical blank expressions, then glance at each other out of the corners of their eyes. “…What?”

“You know, you kind of sound like you did when…” Stiles trails off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

“When what?”

Stiles sighs and looks up to meet his gaze. “When you first met Allison.”

“Oh.” He blinks rapidly, swallowing back a sudden surge of emotions. “I mean, I.” He rolls his eyes. “Stiles, it’s not like I’m in love with Derek or anything.”

“No, I mean.” Stiles takes a breath. “You just…you sounded really happy.”

“What?” Scott tilts his head. “Stiles, you’ve always been the downer out of the two of us. I’ve always been the happy one.”

“Yeah, but after everything went to hell,” Stiles says. “For a while, you were just…but then you met Allison, and you were really…it wasn’t just happy, it was hopeful. You know, you actually wanted things for yourself again, instead of just accepting whatever happened to you.” He sighs. “I’ve known you pretty much my whole life, Scott, okay? There was a difference. And the way you were talking, it just really reminded me of that.”

Scott blinks. “I never stopped…I’ve always…” He frowns at Stiles, brows drawing together. “Did I really change that much? Kira?”

“I mean, I kind of came in in the middle of it all,” Kira says. She hunches her shoulders, mouth twisting uncomfortably. “Maybe it was because I didn’t know you before Allison and Isaac, but…I’ve never actually seen you this happy before. Like, _genuinely_ happy because someone made you feel that way.”

“You’re just really not the kind of person to focus on surviving instead of living,” Stiles says. “So when you started acting that way, it was…I didn’t like it. Like, thank god you met Allison, because she was the best thing to happen to you for a really long time.” He squirms in his seat. “I actually hadn’t realized how much you’d fallen back into it until just now. I should’ve noticed it sooner. You signing up for that mission was a _dead_ giveaway.”

He frowns. “Stiles, it’s not your job to keep an eye on me.”

“It kind of is,” Stiles says, nodding. “But my point is, as crazy as it sounds, you getting kidnapped by that Corpse might’ve kind of been the best thing to happen to you.”

“Honestly, Scott,” Kira says. “It kind of sounds like you miss him.”

“I…” Scott begins, then pauses. “It’s just – I mean, it’s not…it’s not like I – I don’t-” He sighs in frustration. “I don’t even know.”

“Well, that’s good,” Stiles says, nodding. “I mean, you don’t want to dive headfirst into something like this, especially since he’s, like, one over-exuberant hickey away from accidentally recruiting you to join the legion of undead.” He pauses. “It’d be accidentally, right? Like, how do you know he doesn’t secretly want to eat you?”

“I think I read a romance novel like that once,” Kira muses. “It made the guy even more appealing because of the _danger_.” She wiggles her fingers.

“Oh my god.” Scott rolls his eyes. “No. Oh my god. It’s nothing like that, okay. I’m not stupid, I know…” He tilts his head back. “Look, he had so many opportunities to kill me, and he didn’t. I was there for _days_ , and he didn’t try to eat me once. He even brought me _back_ here instead of just eating me.” He blinks. “Actually, he never ate at all when I was there. I saw M and the others go on a hunt, but Derek didn’t…”

“Who’s M?”

“Derek’s friend,” Scott says absently, distracted by his own mental calculations. He’d been at the airport for over a week, and the last time Derek had eaten was _before_ then, and…

“He has _friends?_ ” Stiles cuts in. Scott looks up to see them both boggling at him. “Like, like… _friends?_ Corpses have friends?”

“Well.” He shrugs uncomfortably. “Just kind of other…Corpses that they talk to. And, like, know their names and stuff.”

 _“Names?”_ Kira and Stiles repeat in unison, eyes wide.

“Well, it’s more like a single letter.”

“Oh.” Kira deflates a little, then brightens. “But you – but Derek remembers his name.”

He squirms. “Not really. He…he knew that it started with a D.”

“Hang on.” Kira shoves Stiles out of the way and digs an old tape recorder out of the drawer. “I’m gonna need to write this all down later. This is amazing. We never knew-”

“Will they even care?” Stiles interrupts.

She hesitates, then presses record. “Medical will,” she says. “Melissa McCall will want to know. And – if we can find more evidence, get enough for a sample size, then it’s – it has to be. That’s a sure sign of humanity, self-awareness; they can’t ignore that. Security – the General will _have_ to acknowledge it.”

“And then what?” Stiles asks. “All the higher-ups are dead; we’ve been following out-of-date orders because everyone’s given up trying to move _forward_ -”

“So we force them to,” Scott says quietly. Their heads snap towards him. He continues, louder, “We move everyone else around them forward until they don’t have a choice. I can – there’s others like him, I know it. They can change, they can _all_ change. I could see it in their faces, in their eyes, and _De-_ ” His throat closes abruptly.

Kira nudges the recorder closer to him, watching him with careful eyes. “You said he remembered his name began with a D.”

“Yeah.” He nods. “He…I told him I didn’t know what to call him, and he said – he brought up his name. He said, ‘my name,’ and, ‘starts with a D.’”

Stiles’ eyebrows inch their way up his forehead. “He said that. Those words specifically. A _Corpse_ said that.”

Scott nods, then remembers the recorder. “Yeah. I know, it shocked me, too. He told me he couldn’t remember anything past that, so then I-” He breaks off, dragging a hand through his hair. “I should’ve left it there. He’d already given me an identity, and that was enough, I shouldn’t have – but I got so…caught up in it, I guess…because he remembered, you know? So I thought he might recognize his name if I said it back to him.”

“Oh.” Stiles leans back. “So he didn’t name himself Derek. You…brought it up to him.”

“Yeah.” He drops his face into his hand. “I shouldn’t have. I was just so excited, and when I mentioned ‘Derek,’ it seemed like he…he reacted, and I thought that meant something. But…he was probably just humoring me, just picked a name after I threw so many at him.”

“Well, if he was ‘just humoring you,’” Kira says, holding up her hands in quotation marks, “He sure kept it up for a long time. He answered to Derek the whole time you were with him, right?” Scott nods. “That’s a long memory for self-identification – which we hadn’t even thought was possible with Corpses – and…” She trails off, tapping her fingers together. “Okay, so if he really went with Derek for your sake rather than what he really wanted, that’s…altruism, kind of.”

Stiles makes a face. “ _Barely_.”

“It’s the most deliberate gesture of altruism we’ve ever seen in a Corpse, period.”

“No,” Stiles shoots back. “The most deliberate gesture of altruism we’ve ever seen in a Corpse was definitely when Derek saved Scott’s ass and kept him alive for an entire week in a den of hungry Corpses.”

They blink at each other for a long moment, then Kira lets out a heavy sigh. “That was such a great statement, Stiles,” she says, “And I’m _still_ going to have to edit around it later because you had to say ‘ass.’”

“Well, Scott’s ass is fine,” Stiles says, flashing Scott a smirk.

Kira rolls her eyes. “My point is, even if Derek…answered to Derek…entirely for your sake, that’s sympathy, and self-awareness, and understanding on a level that’s very…it’s almost…”

“Human?” Scott suggests. “Alive?”

Kira’s shoulders slump. “Yeah,” she says quietly.

A pit settles in Scott’s stomach as he remembers Derek’s self-deprecating grin. “I shouldn’t have tried to name him,” he says. “I should’ve gone with the name he suggested.”

“D?” Stiles asks. Scott nods, and Stiles makes a face. “Well, I mean – I guess, for a _Corpse_ – but honestly, Derek rolls off the tongue a lot better.” He tilts his head. “I guess that’s not really a concern for a Corpse, though, huh.”

“Maybe he just liked the way you said it, Scott. Maybe that’s why he went with it,” Kira says. She shrugs. “I mean, we can guess as much as we want, but we’ll never really know unless we ask him.”

He looks down, throat closing. “Yeah.”

Kira and Stiles frown at each other, then Kira reaches forward and turns off the recorder. “Did I say something wrong?” she asks slowly.

“No, it’s just.” He shakes his head. “I left him.”

“…Well, yeah,” Stiles says, exchanging sidelong glances with Kira. “That’s kind of obvious, since you’re here now and all.”

“No, I mean, I…” He sighs. “I…kind of…ditched him when I came back here.”

They blink at him for a long moment, then Kira says, “You don’t mean like literally in a ditch, do you?”

She looks so worried that hacking laughter bursts from Scott’s throat. “No,” he says quickly. “No, we were in the suburbs when I left him. In a house and everything.”

“Oh, okay.” She relaxes, then frowns. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, I mean.” He squirms. “I…I didn’t even say thank you when I left. Or…goodbye. Or anything.”

“Oh, _Scott_.” Stiles groans. “You didn’t.”

“I panicked?” Scott tries. “He just – and I – I couldn’t…” He lets out an exasperated breath. “I just, I knew if I looked him in the eye and tried to say goodbye, I wouldn’t be able to. So I just…” He spreads his hands helplessly. “Didn’t?”

“ _Dude!_ ” Stiles yells, again.

“I know!” Scott yells back, but it comes out closer to a squeak. “I messed up! I messed up so bad, and now he probably hates me, and-”

“Oh my god, please stop talking,” Stiles says, shoving a hand into Scott’s face. “You’re just making it worse, oh my god.”

“What?”

“Scott,” Kira says, patting his arm with her most sympathetic smile. “You’re kind of ridiculously in love with him.”

“ _What?_ ” He jerks upright. “No, I’m not – I mean, I – I’m just.” He rubs the back of his neck. “ _Stiles?_ ”

Stiles shakes his head at him. “You got it bad, Scotty,” he says. He leans in with a sage nod. “You want the D.”

“I don’t – oh my god, are you serious.” Scott glares at the two as they burst into uncontrolled laughter.

“I know, I know,” Stiles says, flapping his hand, “you don’t _really_ want the D since you’re ace and all, but that was, like, the perfect opportunity to make that pun and I literally could not stop myself. Literally.”

Kira nods and wipes a tear from one eye. “Honestly, if he hadn’t said it, I probably would’ve. The setup was just too perfect.”

Scott sighs. “I don’t want the D,” he mumbles, and pretends that it doesn’t come out sounding quite so petulant.

“Well, I think he answers to Derek, at least from you,” Stiles snorts. He finally drags himself upright. “Okay, okay, but seriously. Scott. You are _so_ gone over him. I actually kinda wanna meet him, if you like him that much.” He pauses, mouth scrunching. “…I can’t believe I just said I want to meet a Corpse.”

“Well.” He shrugs jerkily. “Yeah. Well.”

Kira loads a fresh tape into the recorder. “I’m gonna leave this with you, okay?” she says, handing over the recorder. “Whenever you feel like talking about Derek or M or any of them, just keep this on, okay?”

Scott nods, tucking the recorder into his jacket pocket. “Okay.”

She smiles encouragingly at him, then stands. “I’m gonna go get dinner started. Stiles, can you give me a hand?”

“In the least subtle ploy ever to give Scott some space? Sure,” Stiles says. He claps Scott on the shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Scott says. He jerks his thumb at the balcony. “I’m just gonna go get some air.”

Kira nods. “We’ll come get you when the food’s ready.”

He musters up a wobbly smile until the door clicks shut behind them, then steps out onto the balcony with a sigh. The cool night air cuts through him in a soothing sort of chill, and his hand bumps the recorder as he jams his fists into his pockets. He plucks it out, drops it onto the railing next to him, then shrugs and starts recording.

Then he has to rewind and start over when he realizes that he’s wasted a solid three minutes just staring at the slowly revolving tapes. “Huh,” he says as he restarts the recording. “Movement really _is_ better. Derek was on to something there.” He frowns. “Derek. D. De – oh, why am I even bothering?”

He leans back against the railing. It’s a little weird, talking to thin air, but it’s surprisingly comforting to muddle through his thoughts out loud. There’s something freeing about speaking them out loud, pushing them away from him and sweeping out the tangles in his mind. “I was just so caught up in figuring out a name, but who _cares_ about names? What’s in a name, really? It’s not the name that matters, it’s the person behind it, and that’s – that’s what makes Derek, Derek. Or D. Or whoever he wants to be. And I should’ve – if I wasn’t so stuck on what I _thought_ I know, all the dumb ways I thought things were supposed to be…then I could’ve seen that. And I could’ve…I don’t know. Helped him more, I guess. Or, well, maybe help other people like him.” He shrugs. “He never really needed me.”

“I do.”

Derek’s voice echoes softly, quietly, from somewhere behind his head – the back of his head, and Scott could laugh from how real it sounds. “You don’t,” he says. He shakes his head, partly to express just how _wrong_ Derek is, and partly to dislodge the voice from his head. “You were already changing before you met me.”

“And you helped me – change even more.” The voice pauses, and Scott pictures Derek shrugging with his faintly bemused smile. “You make me better.”

He grins. “Yeah, you make me better, too. I hadn’t even realized…I mean,” he continues, turning around to stare out at the darkened Stadium, “the way things are now, I know it’s important for us to not die, but we worried about that so much that we didn’t remember to live, and – oh my god.” Scott freezes when he sees Derek out of the corner of his eye, just barely visible beneath the balcony. He slumps. “Great. Auditory _and_ visual hallucinations, great. Kira’s not gonna be happy about this.” He looks up at the moon. “I can’t tell her. She can’t tell Mom.”

He looks back down to erase the recording, then gapes when his hallucinatory Derek backs up into his range of vision. And then waves, opens his mouth, and says, “Hi.”

“Oh my god.” Scott grabs the railing as his knees buckle, and his hand nudges the recorder clean off the balcony.

He watches, dumbfounded, as Derek catches the recorder in his cupped hands, then holds it up with a grin that’s downright _cheerful_.  “Caught it,” Derek says.

“Oh my god. You’re – you’re actually _here_.”

Derek nods, then points at the balcony with raised eyebrows. “Nice…decorations.”

Scott chokes out a laugh, glancing at the machine guns mounted on either side. “Yeah, uh. Can never be too careful, you know.” His eyes widen, and he leans over the balcony. “We need to get you off the street _right now_. Can you climb up here?”

Derek looks up at the railing several feet over his head, then down at his hands, then shakes his head. He points in front of him. “Door?”

Scott blinks. Right. The door. The front door. The front door to the house that is easily accessible, duh. “Yeah,” he says, nodding quickly. “Yeah, I’ll-”

The balcony doors open, and Stiles pokes his head out. “Are you, uh, _yelling_ at yourself out he – oh my god.” He darts forward and is only saved from tumbling over the balcony by Scott’s hand around his chest. “That’s – that’s a.”

“That’s Derek.”

Stiles’ mouth falls open. “ _That’s_ -” Derek waves up at them. “It just waved. A zombie just waved at me. I-” Stiles shuts his mouth with a snap, then wiggles his fingers at Derek. “Hey, there, uh. Derek. D. You.”

Derek nods easily. “Derek.”

Stiles’ head whips up to stare at Scott. “Holy crap. A zombie just talked to me. A z – oh my god, why are we just standing here, we need to get it off the street, like, _right now_.”

“Yeah.” Scott nods. “I was about to let him in the front door.” He looks back down at Derek, who grins up at him, then at the balcony doors, then back down at Derek.

“…Do you want me to wait here and keep an eye on it – him – so it doesn’t disappear in the five seconds it’s going to take you to get downstairs?” Stiles asks.

Scott ducks his head. “Yeah, could you?”

Stiles nods, clapping Scott’s arm with a grin. “Go get the D!”

“ _Stiles_.”

“What? I said go!”

Scott flashes Stiles a halfhearted glare, then runs back into the bedroom, out into the hall, leaps down the stairs, flings the front door open…and runs to grab it before it smashes Derek in the face. He leans through the doorway, gripping the door tight, and struggles to catch his breath. “Hi.”

Derek beams back at him. “Hi.”

They stare at each for a long moment, while Derek smiles and Scott tries not to breathe so loudly in the quiet night air. Then Stiles yells down at them, “Are you gonna let him in or what? He’s not a freaking vampire!”

They both jump, heads jerking up towards the balcony and then back to each other. “Right, sorry,” Scott says, and steps back to let him in. He shuts the door slowly, checks all four locks, and then turns around to face Derek. “So, um. Hi.”

Derek shifts his weight back and forth. “Hi.”

Footsteps thud down the hallway, pause, and then, “Nope, too awkward,” Stiles mutters, turning around and walking back the way he came. “Nope.”

Scott turns back to Derek and finds him fidgeting in place, eyes on the brink of an apology. He touches the sleeve of Derek’s worn leather jacket, just to reassure himself that Derek’s really here. “How’d you get past Security?”

Derek shrugs. “Thought…I was…human.”

He says it with an easy smile, but there’s something sad in his eyes, something pained, and it stabs through Scott’s gut. He stumbles forward, flinging his arms around Derek and squeezing tight. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles into Derek’s shirt, swallowing past a choked throat and burning eyes. “I’m so sorry, Derek, I didn’t mean to – I, I couldn’t…” He bites back a sob as Derek’s hands settle over his back, feather-light and far too tense. “I left you a note.”

“Scott.” Derek’s hands move to his shoulders, holding him at arm’s length so he can peer into Scott’s eyes. “I can’t read.”

Scott’s mouth falls open. “…Oh, fuck,” he whispers, slapping his hands over his face. How could he have – “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Derek, I-”

Derek wheezes. Scott’s head shoots up in alarm, and he watches Derek hack out wheezing breaths, hunching over while he clutches Scott’s shoulder for support. “…Are you laughing at me?” he asks.

“No,” Derek says, and then clutches his side as his wheezes turn into hacking laughter.

Scott’s mouth falls open, again. “You _are_ laughing at me!” Derek catches his breath, then becomes visibly confused by having a lungful of breath. Scott nudges his chest until he remembers to exhale. “You could’ve died getting here,” he says. “Why’d you do it?”

“Had to,” Derek says. “Had to find you again. Others are – changing. Because of you.”

Scott’s eyes widen. He thought he’d seen hints of it at the very end, with M and the others whose names they hadn’t yet learned. And Liam…Liam was definitely different. “You mean, because of _you_.”

“No.” Derek reaches forward and winds his fingers through Scott’s, staring pointedly at their joined hands. “Because of you.”

“Oh.” Scott’s breath leaves him in a rush, heart pounding. “So we – we have to go back. We have to help them, we-”

“ _Absolutely not_.”

Scott spins around to see Stiles thundering down the stairs. “Have you been listening in this whole time?” he asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Stiles says, waving his hand dismissively. “Scott, you can’t leave. You just got here, you – we just got you _back_.” His voice cracks. “I thought you were dead, Scott, okay, we thought you were _gone_ , and now you want to go back out there and get yourself killed just because of _him?_ ”

Derek leans away from Stiles’ accusatory finger. “Stiles,” Scott says, pushing his arm down, “it’s not like that, okay? It’s not just Derek, I saw others like him at the airport. Or, well, they could _become_ like him with the right help. If we help…” He trails off. _We_. It’s not just the Dead who have to change; it’s the Living, too. They can help each other, work together, _live_ —

“It still sounds a lot like you’re banking a lot of risk on a bunch of wishful thinking,” Stiles says. “You really think all the Dead can end up like him?”

“Not Boneys,” Derek says, shaking his head. “Too…”

“Shrieky Skeletor freaks of nature?” Stiles supplies.

Derek blinks at him. “Stagnant.”

“Oh.” Stiles’ eyebrows lift. “That’s a pretty big word for a Corpse.”

“The Dead lose muscle control, not their vocabulary, Stiles,” Kira says, walking into the foyer with her hands propped on her hips. “Don’t be a dick.”

Scott scratches the back of his head, acutely aware of his other hand still wrapped around Derek’s. “Have you been listening in this whole time, too?”

“Of course not,” Kira says, waving her hand dismissively. “But I heard shouting, so I figured I’d break things up before Stiles got punched. Hi, Derek! I’m Kira. Do you eat rice?”

Derek looks at Kira, then at Scott, then back at Kira. He waves his free hand, and Kira beams. “Sure?”

 

“Scott,” Stiles says, looking up from his plate. “Not to completely humiliate you or anything, but…the Corpse is using his chopsticks better than you.”

“He has a name, Stiles.”

“Yeah, don’t try to distract me from the fact that you just dropped your food again,” Stiles says with a snort. “I’m just – Derek’s working with literally dead hand muscles here, and he’s _still_ doing better than you.”

Derek blinks at Stiles. “He means it as a compliment,” Kira says, patting his arm. “Just go with it.” Derek nods and goes back to his food.

Scott finally manages to shove a single pea into his mouth. “It’s hard picking up rice with chopsticks,” he mutters.

Stiles pointedly turns to watch Derek easily lift a chunk of rice to his mouth. Derek freezes mid-chew when he notices the entire table staring at him, then swallows awkwardly. “Uh.”

Stiles turns back to Scott with a smirk. “I rest my case.”

“ _You’re_ using a fork.”

“Scott,” Kira says primly, “there’s no reason to get embarrassed just because you’re getting shown up by your undead boyfriend.”

Derek blinks, eyes suddenly wide. “Boyfriend?”

“Oops,” Kira says, far too innocently. She stands and quickly gathers up their plates. “Stiles, help me wash the dishes.”

Scott drops his head onto the table with a groan as the kitchen door swings shut. Derek’s chair creaks as he shifts. “Boyfriend?” he repeats.

Scott cracks an eye open and hopes his burning face isn’t too obvious. “Kira talks a lot.”

Derek nods, lips curving into a grin. “You – have rice on your face.”

“Oh, great.” Scott sits up, swiping ineffectively at the grains. Derek huffs a laugh and bats his hand aside, leaning in to carefully brush them off. “Um-”

The kitchen door bursts open, and Stiles runs in. “Okay, so – wow, you have got to be the least smooth undead zombie I have ever met,” he says, squinting at Derek. He shakes his head. “Anyway, we gotta go hide Derek in the closet. Lydia’s here.”

“What?” Scott stands as Stiles tugs Derek upright and starts shoving him towards the hall. “Lydia’s fine. She’ll understand when we explain things.”

“Yeah, but Mason’s with her.”

Scott freezes. A nine-year-old come face-to-face with a Corpse definitely doesn’t sound like a good idea. “Yeah, okay, closet.”

Excited shouts echo from the other side of the kitchen. Scott watches helplessly as the door bursts open, Mason runs in, and – “Mister Derek!” he yells, then runs forward and tackles Derek in a hug.

Stiles blinks at Derek, then at Mason, then at Scott. “…What the hell just happened.”

“This is Mister Derek,” Mason says, grabbing Derek’s hand as he turns around to face Stiles. “He was lost on Silver Street, and he said he was looking for Scott’s house, so I told him how to get here!” He grins up at Scott. “Lydia said we could come by and make sure he got here.”

“You _let_ him?” Stiles demands, gaping at Lydia.

Lydia gestures helplessly at Mason. “He never said that! All he told me was he wanted to see Scott since his quarantine was over!”

“Well, I couldn’t _tell_ anyone about him,” Mason says, shrugging. “Since he’s…you know.” He leans up on his toes, and Scott crouches down to cup his ear next to Mason. “Mister Derek is a zombie,” Mason whispers, loudly enough for the entire room to hear him anyway.

Lydia crosses her arms. “Mason, you left the house and talked to a zom – a _Corpse?_ ”

“Actually, we’re using the term ‘Dead’ more nowadays,” Kira says unhelpfully. Lydia shoots her a glare before turning back to Mason.

Mason crosses his arms. “I never left the house, and Derek stayed on the street the whole time he talked to me. And,” he adds hastily as Lydia and Stiles open their mouths, “I knew he was really Scott’s friend because he knew Scott’s last name.” He nods earnestly. “His real last name, not McCall. Oh, and he had a note from Scott and everything.”

Stiles blinks, turning to Scott. “You wrote him a note?” he mutters.

Scott stares at the ground as his face heats. “Yeah.”

“You know Corpses aren’t actually capable of rea-”

“Yeah, I got that, Stiles.”

“You wanted to see him, right?” Mason asks Scott, staring up at him with wide eyes. “’Cause that’s what it said in your note and-”

“Yeah, you did the right thing, Mason,” Scott says quickly. He glares as Stiles jams his fist into his mouth to keep from laughing. “And thank you for not telling anyone, even Lydia. That part’s really important.”

Mason beams, swinging Derek’s hand happily. “He’s really nice! And I knew that-” A gristly snap echoes through the room, and Mason stares in wide-eyed horror at Derek’s dislocated pinky. “…I am _so sorry_.”

Derek holds up his hand, sighing at Scott. “Told you,” he mutters. “You’re – _better_ – with kids.”

Scott snorts. “Yeah, I’m starting to see that now.”

“Scott,” Kira snaps. “Are you just gonna stand there and laugh at him instead of resetting his finger?”

“Hey, I was just…” Scott points at Derek. “He was laughing, too!”

Derek blinks down at his hand. “Ow,” he says, completely deadpan. Stiles snorts.

Lydia sinks down into the nearest chair. “My nine-year-old brother just broke a zombie’s hand,” she says faintly.

“Technically, he dislocated a finger,” Kira says as she inspects Derek’s hand. She resets his finger with a squelching pop – Stiles grimaces and claps a hand over Mason’s eyes – and pats it. “There, as good as new.”

Mason leans forward and pokes Derek’s pinky tentatively. “I’m sorry I dislocated your finger, Mister Derek.”

Lydia drops her head into her hands. “This is the weirdest day of my entire life.”

 

* * *

 

“For the record,” Stiles says as Kira herds him out the door, “I think this is a terrible idea and we’re going to end up getting someone killed.”

“Yeah, you said that, like, five times already,” Kira says. “Duly noted, now go get us clothes.” She pushes him out the door and shuts it in his face, then spins around and grins at Derek. “Okay, Lydia will be back soon with makeup, so we need to get you cleaned up.”

Derek blinks down at his clothes, then looks back up at Kira. “Okay.”

Kira beams and holds up three bars of soap and five scrubbing pads. “Do you remember how to use shampoo? ‘Cause if not, I’m sure Scott could help you with-”

“Kira, he knows how to bathe himself,” Scott says. He pops open the bottle of shampoo, then gags at the scent of fake fruit. “Jeez, this smells terrible.”

“The more you can smell it, the better,” Kira says, recapping the bottle and shoving it into Derek’s arms. “Use the whole bottle if you have to, Derek. We need to mask your smell as much as possible, no offense.”

“He doesn’t _smell_.”

Kira exchanges glances with Derek. “Scott, you spent the past week living with the Dead, so your olfactory senses can’t really be trusted right now,” she says. “Trust me. He doesn’t smell like the Living, okay?”

Derek uncaps the shampoo and sniffs at it. “Peaches,” he says, grinning at Kira.

“Yeah, ‘cause of that time you told me about, with Scott and the fruit cocktail,” Kira says, patting his arm with a grin.

“You told her about the-” Derek ducks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. “He told you about the peaches,” Scott says to Kira, nonplussed.

“Yeah, it was a really cute story,” Kira says. She laughs when Scott rolls his eyes. “No, really, it was! It was a really nice gesture from both of you.”

Scott sighs. “You’re never gonna let me hear the end of it, are you.”

“Nope.” The water turns on in the bathroom, and Scott shoots up when they hear several thuds, followed by what sounds like muffled cursing. “I guess even zombies drop the soap,” Kira snorts, nudging Scott back into his seat. “Calm down. He’s fine.”

“Yeah, I know, yeah,” Scott mutters. Kira tilts her head, watching him with a fond smile. “What?”

“It’s just really cute how much you worry about each other,” Kira says. “When I was talking to him this morning, you know, he would not shut up about you.”

Scott blinks. Wait. “Wait, you…you _talked_ to him? Like, he talked to you?”

“‘Talk’ is a pretty strong word,” Kira says. She tilts her head. “But yeah, we communicated. I mean, once you realize he only seems like a closed book because his body just can’t keep up with his brain, it’s pretty easy to figure out what he’s trying to say.”

Scott ducks his head. It sounds so simple, all laid out in a single sentence like that, and it’s more than a little embarrassing that it took him so long to figure out back at the airport. “See, that’s why you’re gonna be such a great nurse.”

“I was just doing what you said you did, Scott.”

“I never said any of that.”

“Well, not in those exact words,” Kira says, leaning back on her hands. “But I got the gist of it. Plus, I met Derek under completely different circumstances. My life isn’t in constant danger here. Well, relatively speaking.” Scott stares down at the carpet, and she punches his shoulder. “Hey. Stop beating yourself up just because you couldn’t read Derek’s mind all the time. The only reason I’m having such an easy time communicating with him is because you got him to open up in the first place.”

Scott shrugs. “All I did was talk to him.” He rolls his eyes. “More like talk _at_ him, most of the time.”

“Well, maybe that’s all he needed,” Kira says. “You don’t always have to speak for people to hear you, you know?”

Scott looks over at the Polaroid camera sitting next to his bed. He feels the corner of his mouth lift. “Yeah.”

 

The water shuts off eventually, and a loud thud echoes through the door. “He probably tripped getting out of the tub,” Kira says. She turns to the bathroom door expectantly, then frowns when several minutes pass in silence. “Uh.” Scott follows her to the door, and she knocks hesitantly. “Derek? Is everything okay in there?”

Scott hears the squeak of skin sliding on tile, and then the door opens with a gust of steam. Scott coughs in the sudden onslaught of fake peaches, fanning the steam away from his face. “Whoa,” he hears Kira say. “Derek, you’re hot!”

His eyes fly open. “Seriously,” Kira continues, tapping gingerly at Derek’s shoulder. “Your skin’s really…how hot did you make the water?”

Derek shrugs, clutching a towel loosely around his waist. “All the way?”

Kira blinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Well, I guess it’s not like it’ll scald you,” she says. “Can I see your hand?” Derek lets go of the towel to hold out his hand, and Scott abruptly jerks his head up to stare at Derek’s hair. It’s very dark and shiny. Sleek, even. “…You could’ve given me the other hand,” Kira says.

“This is – my dominant hand,” Derek says. “Couldn’t clean it as well.” He nods at it. “Wanted to see that, right? The discoloration?”

“Yeah,” Kira says, sounding equal parts surprised and impressed. “I was a little worried about that, especially in the fingernails, but…Scott, what d’you think? Think it’ll pass well enough?”

“Huh?” Scott glances at the hand Kira waves in front of his face. “Yeah. It’s fine. He’s fine.”

“You really are, Derek,” Kira says, eyes flitting down his front. “Honestly, I’m – I’ve never seen this much muscle tone on a C – Dead before.” She pokes at his stomach, eyebrows disappearing into her hairline. “Wow. They’re so _firm_. They almost feel…” She turns to Scott. “Scott, come feel these, they’re amazing!”

Scott tucks his hands behind his back. “Or, y’know,” he says, staring intently at Derek’s shoulder and not a hair lower, “Personal space.”

“Huh?” Kira asks, then finally seems to notice her own hand splayed over Derek’s abs. “Oh, sorry! Do you want me to, uh, grab your towel for you?”

Derek looks down at the towel fallen behind him. “I got it,” he says, then slowly turns around. A tattoo sits high on his back, three spirals entwined – a triskelion. A triple spiral in continuous motion. Scott blinks at it, wondering what it means to Derek. Past, present, and future, maybe. Or creation, preservation, and destruction. Life, death…rebirth.

Scott tears his gaze away as Derek reaches down for the towel, only to watch a crafty smirk form on Kira’s face. “Scott, can you help him with his hair?” she asks innocently, slapping a comb into his hand. “I have to go let Lydia in.”

“But-” He sighs as Kira all but skips out of the room, then lifts the comb with a sigh. “Is it okay if I…?”

Derek shrugs. He sits on the edge of the tub patiently while Scott drags the comb through his hair. “Hang on, there’s-” He grabs the towel and wipes away a few trace suds. “Wow, how much shampoo did you use?” Derek shrugs, lips curved in amusement, and – Scott leans closer and sniffs at his face. “…Did you shampoo your beard, too?” Derek snorts out a laugh. “Well, now your face smells like fake peaches.”

“Good,” Derek says. The comb snags on a tangle, and Derek’s head jerks back as Scott tugs at it. “Ow.”

“Sorry,” Scott says automatically, then notices Derek’s smirk. “Hey! Not funny.”

“Probably hurt.”

“Yeah, well.” Scott steps back, frowning at Derek’s hair. “That’s as good as it’s going to get without hair gel.” Derek shrugs. “You wanna see?” Scott asks, turning towards the mirror. He stops when he sees the center already wiped clear with a lone handprint pressed into the side.

Derek stares down at his hands when Scott turns back to him. “Not…a fan…of mirrors,” he says quietly.

Scott sits down next to him, leaning his weight carefully on the edge of the tub. “Yeah, I know the feeling,” he says. “But for what it’s worth, I think you look great.”

“For a Corpse.”

Scott takes Derek’s hand. “For a _human_ , Derek,” he says, running his thumb over the tips of Derek’s fingers, “I think you look great.”

 

“Scott,” Stiles says loudly, “Would you stop with the pacing? You look like a nervous date on prom night.” He blinks. “I guess that’s kind of accurate, though, huh.”

Scott drops onto the couch next to Stiles, glaring at him. “I am not. And we never even went to prom, Stiles, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Every teen movie has prom. I know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m not…” Scott sighs. “I’m just…kind of nervous.”

“That’s exactly what I just said,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Relax, Scott. It’s gonna be fine.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Scott says. “What if someone can tell he’s not – what if someone notices? How’re we gonna get him out of here without getting shot? What if-”

“Okay, that’s it.” Stiles grabs him by the shoulders. “Scott, get a grip. If Derek could trick a bunch of Corpses into believing you were Dead, then we can definitely trick a bunch of humans-”

“Living.”

“-Living into believing he’s not Dead,” Stiles finishes. “Lydia knows her makeup, okay? Derek’s gonna look fine.”

The door opens. “It’s a disaster,” Lydia says, marching out with her arms crossed. “Did you find the ugliest clothes in the entire Stadium, Stiles? Really?”

“Well, none of our stuff was gonna fit him,” Stiles retorts. “I had to take stuff my dad wouldn’t miss, and that windbreaker was-”

“Hideous,” Lydia interrupts. “It’s _noticeably_ hideous. And it washes out his coloring.”

Stiles exchanges glances with Scott. “Derek doesn’t have coloring,” he says slowly.

“Exactly!” Lydia snaps.

Kira sidles up next to her. “It’s really not that bad. Y’know, as long as no one looks at him too closely.” She pushes the door open. “So, what d’you guys think?”

Scott and Stiles blink at the empty doorway, then at each other. “Uh,” Stiles says, “I mean, that’s a great door you got there.”

Kira sighs in exasperation and disappears behind the door. “Come on, you look _fine_ ,” her slightly muffled voice says, and then she tugs Derek into view.

He looks… “Wow,” Scott hears Stiles say faintly, somewhere far behind him. “Yeah, wow, remind me to never doubt you again, Lydia.”

Lydia sniffs. “You’re welcome.”

His feet carry him closer to Derek until he has to tilt his head back to meet Derek’s eyes. Their blue glow is duller against peach-pink skin, caked on smoothly with a flush sitting high on Derek’s cheeks. His lips, neck, even the back of his ears are painted over, trailing down his chest into a loose-necked white shirt. “I wish you’d gotten a darker shirt, Stiles,” Lydia says. “It was so thin we had to paint his entire torso just so it wouldn’t show up in the sunlight.”

“Yeah, well, no one else could get believable clothes in his size, so, deal with it,” Stiles says.

“I already _did_. That doesn’t mean I was happy about it.”

Derek looks down at Scott, brows lifting in concern. “How do I look?”

The makeup’s painted on flawlessly. Not even a tiny crack shows in the crease between Derek’s brows, and a knot forms in Scott’s gut for reasons he can’t quite place. He curls his mouth into a smile, swallowing heavily. “You look good.”

“Good?” Lydia demands. “Please, Scott, he looks _great_ , okay. Clothing aside, he looks amazing, he looks-”

“Alive,” Derek says. His eyes dim ever so slightly at the word, cheeks just barely twitching down, and that knot in Scott’s gut tightens. That’s it, that’s what’s setting him just slightly off-balance with this, that’s why he can’t quite muster up a real smile. Derek isn’t – he isn’t Alive. He isn’t.

And somewhere along the way, Scott stopped admitting that to himself.

He reaches forward carefully, brushing his fingers against Derek’s pink-toned hand. It’s still cold to the touch, wrapping around Scott’s in a familiar chill, and Scott lets out a breath he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding. “You’re still you under all that,” he says, grinning up at Derek.

Derek shrugs, lips curling to match Scott’s. “Always will be,” he says. It comes out flatter than usual, deliberately monotone, and Scott frowns. Derek lifts his head before Scott can ask why, though, and turns to the others with a quiet smile. “Can I go outside?”

 

“Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Stiles says as they leave the school to turn down Cross Road. He jerks his thumb towards the tunnel. “Gonna go visit my mom.”

“Sure thing.” Scott starts to follow Lydia away from the tunnel, but Derek doesn’t move. “Derek?”

Derek stares down the tunnel. “What’s – down there?”

“Uh.” Scott exchanges glances with Lydia. “It’s…it’s the cemetery.”

Derek doesn’t react, just keeps staring down the tunnel. Scott feels something like dread filling his stomach. “Come on, Derek,” Kira calls. “We’ll take you to the bar. It’s only juice, but the grapefruit’s pretty good.”

Scott steps up next to Derek. “You wanna go see it?” he asks quietly. Derek nods. “Okay.” He pauses, scratching the back of his head. “There’s, uh…there’s kind of a lot of…graves.”

Derek glances at Scott, one eyebrow twitching up his forehead. “It’s a cemetery,” he says, slowly with an edge of confusion.

Scott shrugs. Derek rolls his head, sighs, and nods expectantly at the tunnel. “Okay,” Scott says, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Kira pokes him as they head down the tunnel. “Did he just roll his head at you? Like, his entire head?”

“Yeah, that’s how he rolls his eyes. ‘Cause, you know, I think the fine eye movements are a little too difficult for-”

“Forget that, he just _sighed_ ,” Lydia says, jogging up and squeezing between them. “That’s an exhalation of breath he doesn’t need. He deliberately took a breath just to sigh at you.”

“Yeah.” Scott sighs. “He’s kind of a really sarcastic guy.”

Kira and Lydia glance at each other. “A D – guy with sarcasm,” Kira says, correcting herself with a completely unsubtle glance around the tunnel. “That’s – that’s different.”

“You do realize that this tunnel echoes so much that even _I_ can hear you,” Stiles calls from the end of the tunnel. He shakes his head. “You guys are really bad at talking about people behind their backs. That’s why you should just leave that job to me.”

“Sorry, Derek,” Kira says, ducking her head a little.

Derek bumps the back of his hand against her arm. “It’s – fine.”

“Amateurs,” Stiles mutters, then wanders out of the tunnel. Derek walks after him, takes one step into the dry grass, and freezes.

Scott stops next to him. “There’s, um. A lot.”

Derek blinks at the headstones, lined in neat row after neat row with barely enough space to walk between them. “They’re,” he says, and pauses for a long moment. “Small.”

“Yeah,” Scott says. “There’s…not a lot to bury most of the time.” An arm, maybe, or a boot – with or without the foot still inside. A broken rib or two atop the bloody scraps of a jacket with bite marks gnawed deep into the bone. Or sometimes, rarely, a scooped-out skull.

Derek nods. “Because…of…us.” Scott presses his lips together and doesn’t respond.

Lydia steps up to them, placing a hand on Derek’s elbow. “These ones are unmarked – remains no one could identify. The marked graves are over there – there’s a map on the wall with all the names. We bring in flowers when we can, ones we find from the outside and plant so they can grow here. And that wall in the back, that’s…” She glances at Scott, then at Stiles’ distant form stopping in front of it. “…That’s all the people who died before the Stadium was built.”

“Before…us,” Derek says.

“Some died long before the takeover,” Lydia says. “Families put their names up, since they’ll never – there’s a lot of the world we can’t get to anymore, just got overrun.” She stops in front of a small office. “Hey, Scott, I’m gonna go check in on Records, okay? Kira?”

“Yeah, I’ll come, too,” Kira says, jogging after Lydia into the office. “We’ll find you on the way out.”

Derek stares after them as they leave. “Not very…subtle.”

Scott laughs at the faint amusement in his voice and leads him along the wall. “They’re usually better,” he says. “Lydia’s not used to having trouble getting a read on people. I think you’re a little bit of a challenge for her.”

Derek tilts his head with a shrug, then pauses in front of the wall. He turns back to Scott. “Maps?”

“Uh, yeah.” Scott rubs his head, watching Derek trace the red lines with a finger. “All the places that we…lost.”

“Overrun.”

“Yeah. The military had to… ” Scott pauses. “In order to save some places, they had to…leave…others.”

Derek jabs a finger into the airplane symbol sitting in a sea of faded red. “Airport.”

Scott nods, watching Derek carefully. “It was one of the first places lost in this area.” He’d read the reports with Allison, back when she first joined Security. There had still been survivors when the military got there, but – too much risk to save too few people. By the time General McCall had been brought in to build the Stadium, the airport had become nothing but a nest of Corpses.

Derek stares at the map, face completely blank. Then, “Stiles is back,” he says, turning away from the wall as Stiles heads towards them.

“Hey guys!” Stiles says, trotting up to them with a wave. “Fun place, right? Anyway,” he nods at the gray sky, “it’s getting dark out. We should head back.”

“Yeah,” Scott says. “Derek-” Derek turns and heads back to the tunnel without a word.

“So I guess zombies can read maps, huh,” Stiles says, jerking his head at the wall. He sighs when Scott doesn’t answer. “Scott, there’s nothing you could’ve done about the airport. There isn’t even anything your _dad_ could’ve done. I mean, the guys who gave the order to let the airport go are dead. Like, _dead_ dead. Deader than Derek dead. Dead like-” He waves his arms at the graves around them, “-like deader than _this_ dead.”

Scott frowns. “How do you get more dead than a cemetery?”

“Oh, well, those guys died longer ago, so they’re more rotted than this place.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Stiles nods, then nudges Scott. “My point is, stop beating yourself up over that. It’s…” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing anyone could’ve done about it. You know that. And you know Derek knows that, too.”

Scott shrugs.

“Scott,” Stiles begins with a sigh, then shakes his head. “Fine, fine. You can mope for five minutes and that’s it, okay? Five minutes.” He runs to catch up with Lydia and Kira.

Derek turns around as Scott trudges up to him. “Sorry,” he says before Scott can open his mouth. “Just…felt.” He shrugs.

Scott nods. “Shrug.”

Derek nods, glancing down at the headstones as they walk. His brows twitch together, and he looks up questioningly at Scott. “Yeah,” Scott says, voice quiet. “These graves are empty. Nothing to bring back, or…” He shakes his head, turning away from Isaac’s gravestone.

Scott looks up to see Derek watching him, brows drawn together. He blinks when Scott meets his gaze. “Sorry,” Derek mutters, head jerking away, then freezes.

“Derek?” Scott asks, but Derek doesn’t so much as blink. He steps off the path, weaving unerringly through the headstones until he stops in front of – a chill runs down Scott’s spine. “Derek-”

Derek sinks to his knees in front of Allison’s empty grave.

Someone nudges Scott’s elbow, and he turns to see Lydia move her hand away. “Leave him,” she murmurs.

“It’s not his fault,” Scott says. “He was different then, he’s changed, he’s – he’s _still_ changing, he-”

“I know,” Lydia says, knuckles white around the arrowhead hanging from her neck. “I know, Scott. But – he needs closure, okay? Just let him go for a bit. Give him some space.”

Scott steps back slowly, watching Derek trace Allison’s name on the headstone with unfocused eyes. “Hey,” Stiles says, “Hey, I know exactly what we all need right now. Lydia, wanna come help me pick up some stuff? We’ll meet you guys back at Scott’s.”

Kira waves them off, then turns to Scott. “I thought Derek couldn’t read,” she murmurs.

He shakes his head. “He can’t. He told me himself, remember, ‘cause I was an idiot and wrote him a _note_ -”

“What I mean, Scott,” Kira interrupts quickly. “These gravestones are all made the same. The only difference between them is the name, and Derek – he found Allison’s all on his own.”

“He was in her head,” Scott says, shrugging. “Or she was in his. I don’t know, that memory transfer thing Medical discovered, you know.”

Kira purses her lips. “Yeah, okay, fine, except for how there’s no way Allison could remember her own burial. Especially since, y’know, it didn’t happen until after-” Her voice tightens, and she swallows. “My point is, the only way he could’ve found it is if he read her name. And what he’s doing right now?” she adds, pointing. “That’s…that’s remorse. That’s _mourning_. We never really expected that the Dead could go through a grieving process for their…for the people they kill. But Derek-”

“Don’t ask him,” Scott says, shaking his head. “Kira, you can’t ask him about that, that’s too much.”

“I know.” Kira nods. “I won’t. But one day, someone will have to.”

He sighs. “Kira.”

She crosses her arms. “How did you feel the first time you killed a Dead person, Scott? The second time? The third? When did you finally stop counting?”

Scott looks away. Twenty-three. He’d killed two at the hospital, three more at the airport. “I never stopped counting.”

Kira nods, unsurprised. They watch Derek press a hand to his chest, right over his heart. “I don’t think Derek ever did, either.”

 

Stiles’ solution turns out to be alcohol. A lot of it, too, judging by the ominous clanks in his bag. “Stiles,” Scott groans.

“Scott, forty-eight hours ago we all thought you were dead, and now we’re harboring a fugitive without a chance in hell of sneaking him out without anyone noticing,” Stiles says. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink. Or ten.”

“Amen to that,” Lydia says, pulling glasses out of the cupboard.

“We don’t even know if Derek can drink,” Scott hisses, so of course Derek chooses that moment to pipe up, “Sure I can.”

Scott turns towards him slowly. Next to him, Kira nods. “Yeah, biologically, he definitely can. I mean, he probably won’t get _drunk_ , but Derek can totally drink.” Derek nods, flashing Scott a grin that almost looks smug.

“It won’t taste very good, though,” Scott says.

Derek eyes the bottles that Stiles sets out on the table. “These – never tasted good – when I _had_ taste buds.”

Stiles snorts, clapping Derek on the back. “Well, you pick out the booze to smuggle in next time, if you’re gonna be all picky about it.”

 

Scott drapes a blanket over Kira and Lydia on the couch, then another over Stiles snoring on the floor. After a moment, he moves the glasses safely out of the way of flailing limbs and carries the half-full bottles with him back to the table.

Derek waits for Scott to sit down, hands folded and still next to the stack of Scott’s sketchbooks. “You don’t like it,” he says quietly. “The makeup.”

“What?” Scott says, caught off-guard. He coughs. “No, I don’t have anything against makeup, it looks great on you, you look great with it.” Derek just keeps staring at him, waiting patiently, and Scott sighs. “It’s not…I don’t not like it or anything. You just…don’t really look like you anymore.”

Derek stares down at the table for a long moment. “I want to.”

Scott nods. He reaches over to wipe flaking makeup from the side of Derek’s hand. “This is just for now, you know. It’s just to keep you safe until we can figure out how to get you out, and then-”

“No.” Derek covers Scott’s hand with his own, turning it to hide the sliver of pale gray. “Scott,” he says slowly, clearly, “I don’t want to be Dead.”

He lets out a breath. “Oh.”

“I don’t,” Derek repeats. “I want-” His brow furrows the way it always does when he can’t put words to meaning, and his hand clenches into a fist. “I want to change. I want…” He starts to shrug, then stops, exhaling sharply through his nose. “I want to – feel. Alive. Again.”

Scott wraps his hand around Derek’s. “Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.”

Derek smiles, faint and sad around the corners, and reaches for the nearest sketchbook with his free hand. “That’s the newest one,” Scott says as Derek inspects the creased cover. It used to be one of Shakespeare’s plays – one of his tragedies where everyone died at the end. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

Derek nods, opening the worn pages carefully. “When did you – start this one?”

“Two years ago.”

Derek stills for a moment, eyes sliding towards the sketchbooks that Scott had filled in the span of a few short months, never longer than a year. He looks up at Scott, then nods and turns back to the book.

“I never was an artist,” Scott says as Derek turns past rough sketches of the Stadium’s gardens. “But…we can’t waste ink on photographs, so…it’s a way to remember.”

Derek turns to a picture of Kira. Her face is shaped wrong, and he couldn’t find the right color for her eyes, and he still can’t draw noses at all – “She looks great,” Derek says.

“You don’t have to be nice,” Scott says, rolling his eyes. “It looks terrible, I’m terrible, I know.”

“No.” Derek nudges the bottom of the stack, the first books that Scott had found in illegible ruin and decided to refill with memories. “ _Those_ are terrible.”

He snorts. “Yeah, those are practically stick figures, don’t remind me. I didn’t really get better until Allison taught me a few things. She was actually really good. Her and…” He trails off, a lump forming in his throat. He never found him, not even at the airport, and he wishes he could just _know_ what happened to him…

“Isaac,” Derek says, peering at a new page. He leans in closer, nose pressed to the sheet as his eyes narrow. “Lay…hey.” He looks up at Scott, pointing at Isaac’s nametag in the drawing. “Is that right?”

Scott blinks. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, actually, it’s pronounced Lahey, but…” He frowns, head tilting. “You can read that?” You can _read_ , he wants to ask, but the slant of Derek’s mouth holds him back.

“Sometimes,” Derek says with an uneven shrug. “Barely. Names – are easier.” He turns the page, then frowns. “Never mind.”

Scott laughs down at the picture of Stiles. “Yeah, I mean, _I_ can barely pronounce his real name and I’ve known him for years. I still can’t really get the accent right.”

Derek nods, turning the page, then hacks out a laugh. Scott’s house is scribbled onto the page in faded marker, with bright green walls and the balcony meticulously colored in hot pink. “Mason drew that one,” Scott says, pointing at the scribbled signature in the corner. “Lydia’s been teaching him about color theory.”

Derek skims over the machine guns sketched out in high detail on either side of the balcony, then his gaze lifts to the words at the top of the page. “Scott,” he reads, lips curving in a grin. “Delgado.”

Scott’s mouth falls open. “Delgado,” Derek repeats, smoothly and with perfect pronunciation. He looks up at Scott. “ _¿Sí?_ ”

“You…” Scott begins. “You know…”

“ _Yo hablo español_ ,” Derek says with a pleased grin. He blinks, shoulders slumping a bit, and heaves a sigh. “… _Podía…hablar…lo_.”

He’d lived in an airport. He’d _lived in an airport_. It makes so much sense, suddenly, and Scott’s more than a little ashamed of how many pieces he hadn’t bothered to put together. He’d always thought of the airport in outbreak logistics – so many people in close spaces like airplanes and mazes of terminals, a perfect breeding ground for the infection. It had always made sense to them – to _him_ – that a place like the airport would have fallen wholly and rapidly to the outbreak, thousands of people from all over the world wiped out in a few short days.

But he’d never thought about who those people had been. Travelers. Local workers with families living near the Stadium or in the long-abandoned suburbs. People from all over the world just trying to get home. Derek could’ve been a college student returning from a semester abroad, or a businessman leaving on another trip overseas. Of course it makes sense for him to know Spanish. Scott thinks of M, the other Dead he’d seen at the airport, children like Liam, and wonders just how much they lost.

He watches Derek stare down at the sketchbook, eyes tracing Scott’s name over and over, and wonders just how much he still has trapped between his mind and atrophied muscles. He nudges Derek’s hand. “ _Sepa_.”

A small smile appears on Derek’s face, breaking into a tiny huff of a laugh. He nods and nudges Scott back. “Shrug.”

Scott leans back in his chair as Derek continues through the rest of the sketchbook. Eventually the rhythmic flipping of pages stops, and Scott cracks his eyes open to see Derek staring at his jacket. Or, more accurately, the nametag sewn into the breastpocket. “Oh.” He straightens, dropping the chair legs back to the ground with a thud. “Uh, technically, my last name’s McCall. Delgado’s my mom’s maiden name, it’s just…” He shrugs. “My friends started calling me Scott Delgado instead.”

Derek blinks, eyes unfocusing briefly. “Why?”

“Well…” He rubs the back of his neck. “Me and my dad don’t…really…get along. I, uh…he actually wasn’t around much until the takeover happened. And he’s, uh, he’s the General, he’s the big guy in charge here, so everyone knows his name, and I just…” He shrugs. “McCall just doesn’t really feel like…me…anymore.”

“So you – chose Delgado. Instead.”

“Yeah. I just wanted…I felt like…” Scott shrugs again. “It’s dumb, I know. Names shouldn’t – they’re just words. They don’t mean anything.”

“They mean everything,” Derek says, nudging Scott’s fingers with his own. “They are…who we are. _What_ …we are.” He speaks slowly, haltingly, brow creased in frustration, but it’s different this time. It’s as if – he’s choosing each word carefully, measured, as if he isn’t struggling with his own voice so much as he’s struggling with…just finding the right words. “Your name matters…because… _you_ …matter.”

Scott stares down at the table, swallowing down the lump that abruptly forms in his throat. “Thank you.”

Derek smiles, swaying a little as he nods encouragingly. Scott’s never seen an inebriated Dead before, but he’s starting to realize that Derek might be closer to drunk than both of them think. “And sometimes…we…”

He trails off with a frown, scratching his face absently with one hand. Scott watches some of the makeup catch under his fingernails, standing out stark and garish against grey-tinged flesh. “Sometimes we can’t go back to who were before,” he says. “We have to move forward with whoever we are now.”

Derek nods again. “Have to choose to…save yourself.”

 _Is that why you chose to be Derek?_ he wants to ask, but doesn’t. He thinks he already knows the answer, staring back at him beneath his own name. “Hey,” he says. “If the world wasn’t the way it was now, what would you want to do with your life?”

Derek stares at Scott for a long moment, eyes wide, then he shakes his head with a huff that sounds almost bitter. “Life,” he repeats, eyebrows raising briefly. “Don’t have that.”

“Maybe not the way most people see it,” Scott says. “But you’re more alive than a lot of people I know, Derek.” He hesitates over the name, then swallows. “So if you could be…anyone you wanted to be.” His gaze drops to the pale strip of gray on Derek’s hand. “Who would you be?”

Derek’s fingers tap on the table for several minutes while he thinks. Then he reaches forward and nudges Scott’s hand, prompting him to look up and see the smile on Derek’s face. “I already am,” he says, voice steady. “I am Derek.”

Scott smiles back. “I am Scott Delgado.” A yawn racks through him, and his eyelids suddenly feel heavy. “Y’know, I think my mom’d really like you. Maybe one day you could meet her.”

Derek’s eyebrows lift. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light, but it looks like his eyes brighten for a moment. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Scott drops forward over the table, tucking Derek’s bare arm under his head as a pillow. “I think-” He yawns again. “I think I’m gonna end up passing out on you soon, sorry.”

Derek wiggles his hand, fingers brushing lightly over the back of Scott’s head. “Literally.”

“Mm-hm.” He nods against his arm, shifting Derek’s hand until it curls cool and sooothing over the nape of his neck. “Can’t sleep when it’s too hot. You’re stuck with me.”

Derek lays his head down next to Scott, eyes glowing bright and fuzzy in the dim lighting. “Okay.”

He taps the peeling bandage on Derek’s forehead. The last of its elastic gives up, and it falls onto the table. His fingers hover over Derek’s skin, tracing the air over the gash cutting through his skull. “Sorry I tried to stab you.”

Derek smiles, huffing out a quiet laugh. “I’m glad you missed.”

“Me, too,” Scott says. Derek looks so calm, so quietly content that Scott feels himself sigh. “I wish,” he begins, then trails off. That the world wasn’t the way it was now. That things could matter again and he didn’t have to hoard patched-together memories like hidden treasure. That he could stay in this moment with Derek forever, where the world was silent and safe and nothing else mattered.

Derek’s mouth curls into a sad sort of smile. “Me, too.”

 

He cracks open bleary eyes, massaging the crick in his neck from falling asleep slumped over a table – a _tray_ table. Scott sits up slowly, squinting around at the jet. Derek’s jet, with sunlight streaming in bright and warm from every window, making the snowglobe and paper cranes sparkle in its rays. He tucks the blanket aside and stands, stumbling as the jet rocks from the wind. Turbulence. They’re—

Scott stumbles to the nearest window and peers out at a clear blue sky. They’re in the air. They’re flying. His nose twitches from the scent of pollen and dandelions and – and he barely has time to note the vaguest hint of peaches before he’s caught in a sneeze. He rubs his nose absently and looks around again.

He’s dreaming. It all feels so real, but he has to be dreaming. This is a dream. He shivers a little. He can’t even remember the last time he’d dreamed.

“This is. End of the line,” an all-too-familiar voice echoes from the cockpit. Scott turns towards the pilot’s seat, heart lumping in his throat, and watches Allison prop up her feet on the controls. “I’m not coming back after this.”

“Neither am I,” a second voice says from the copilot’s seat, familiar and foreign all at once. The tone is the same, but the smooth speech, effortlessly stringing words together and even lilting up into a sort of distant amusement – Scott’s breath catches as a hand settles on the armrest, fingers tapping absently. “After this,” Derek says, “We’re both gone.”

Allison tilts her head as she looks at him, lips curving into a smile – a real, genuine one, one that Scott hasn’t seen in so long. “I’m gonna miss you, Corpse,” she says. “You really gave me a nice sense of perspective on my life.”

“You did, too,” Derek says. He holds his hand out, and Allison wraps hers around it easily. “I wish it could’ve happened when we were still alive.”

“Well.” Allison swings their joined hands. The jet begins to rattle, the blue sky fading into gray clouds. “We’re both long past that point.”

Scott hears the click of a seatbelt, and then Derek swings his legs over the side of his seat. “Why me?” he asks. “Why me, out of everyone?”

“Who knows?” Allison says. “Gotta start somewhere, right?” She taps the back of his hand. “Look at it this way, Corpse. It doesn’t matter if you think you deserve this or not. What matters is what you’re going to do with the choices given to you.”

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Allison grins. “First Shakespeare, now Tolkein. I knew it.”

“Knew I used to be a nerd?” Derek asks, grinning back at her.

She swings her feet off of the console and plants them on the floor, toe to toe with Derek’s. “Knew you used to be a _dreamer_. And you still are.” She looks down the aisle, and Scott’s feet root to the spot as her eyes cut him to the bone. “Just like Scott.”

His breath shallows. “Just like you, Allison,” he says. “Just like you.”

She shakes her head slowly. “There’s a lot of Dead in this world, Scott. Some just don’t look like it yet.”

He tries to step forward, tries to move, but he’s frozen under her stare. “There’s a lot of Living, too,” he says desperately. “Some just don’t look like it yet.” He wrenches his gaze to the passenger seat. “Derek-”

He hears the click of a seatbelt, and something locks tight around his chest. A harness. Straps. A parachute. He struggles uselessly with the straps, but he can’t figure out how break free. “Derek-”

“Sorry, Scott,” Allison says. “You’re not coming along for this one.”

Derek finally turns his face towards Scott, features warm and bright and devastatingly alive. “Can’t save everyone from themselves,” he says, and presses a button on the console.

The emergency exit springs open. “Wait,” Scott says, but they’ve already turned back around as the jet dips towards the ground. “Wait-”

The wind sucks him out of the jet. The parachute bursts open and yanks him back, far away from the falling jet, and begins to lower him safely to the ground.

Scott watches, suspended uselessly in an empty blue sky, as the jet crashes into the sea.

He wakes with a gasp, snapping upright so quickly that his chair tilts away from the table and sends him crashing to the floor. Stiles’ snores abruptly cut off, and he sits up with a groan. “’s going on?” he asks, squinting blearily at Scott while Kira and Lydia’s heads peer over the back of the couch.

“Sorry, just a bad dream,” Scott says, getting up slowly from the floor. He shrugs at Derek and – the table is empty. The other chair is pushed in, the books are neatly stacked, and Derek is nowhere to be seen. Scott spins around. “Where’s-” he begins, then sees the unlocked front door. _“_ Oh, no _.”_

“Scott-” Stiles yells, but the rest of his sentence fades as Scott dashes out the door and into the street, squinting through the dark rain. He can’t have gone far, he probably knows his way back, hopefully, and—

A scream echoes from a block away, and Scott skids over the wet concrete as he runs towards the sound. Shit. Shit. Hopefully the rain didn’t wash off too much of Derek’s makeup, hopefully it’s all just a misunderstanding, hopefully – he rounds the corner and freezes.

Derek’s backed up against the wall, gray-tinged skin soaking through and narrowed eyes shining too brightly in the dark as his hands wrap tight around a patrol officer’s throat. “Derek!”

His eyes widen at Scott’s voice, leaning back to turn his head towards Scott. His grip slackens around the patrol officer’s throat, and the man immediately draws his gun and points it to the center of Derek’s forehead. “Derek!”Scott runs forward, but the officer’s finger is already curling around the trigger. _“No!”_

The gun clicks. Scott slams into Derek, knocking him to the ground while the officer swears at his empty gun. “Oh, god,” Scott mumbles, searching Derek’s face for any signs of injury. “Der – Derek, are you okay?”

Derek roughly shoves Scott off him, then hunches over and – Scott sits up, mouth dropping in confusion as Derek vomits up dark red liquid reeking of fermented fruit. The officer stops reloading his gun to stare, equally confused. “I didn’t know Corpses could puke,” he says.

“They can’t,” a voice says behind him, and then Kira smashes a bottle into the officer’s skull.

Scott stares as Lydia runs forward and grabs the officer’s fallen gun, then helps Kira lift his unconscious body. “What’re you-”

“You gotta get him out of here,” Kira says, nodding at Derek still curled up on the ground. “Someone’ll have heard this guy scream.”

“And they’ll _definitely_ notice when he misses his check-in,” Lydia says. She tosses Stiles the officer’s flashlight. “We’ll stall as long as we can, but you have to get Derek out of here _now_.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah,” Scott says, pulling Derek to his feet. He looks back at them. “Thank you, for-”

“Yeah, we’ll hug it out later when we’re all in jail,” Stiles says as he yanks Scott down the alley. “Let’s just focus on not getting your undead not-boyfriend killed first, though, okay?”

“He’s not-” Scott begins, then glares at Stiles. “Shut up.”

Stiles flashes him a smirk, then leans out of the alley. “Coast’s clear. Let’s go.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Derek mumbles as Scott half-drags him after Stiles. “Just – needed air. Didn’t feel good.”

“Yeah, we probably should’ve figured you’d be a total lightweight when it came to drinking,” Stiles tosses over his shoulder before leading them down another alley. “Our bad.”

“I didn’t.” Derek lifts his head and stares at Scott with earnest blue eyes. “Didn’t eat him. Wasn’t going to.” He shakes his head firmly, eyes still locked on Scott. “Never again.”

“I know, Derek,” Scott says. He presses tighter against his side. “I never doubted you.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” Stiles mutters, but Derek smiles at Scott. It’s still wobbly, and Scott’s still supporting most of his weight, but Derek’s shoulders straighten as if a load had been lifted off them. “Okay,” Stiles continues, turning around, “We just have to cross this last road and then it’s home free through the – what’s with the blood.”

Their heads jerk down to Derek’s shirt, where red smears stand out against the white cotton. Derek immediately turns towards Scott, checking him for injuries before grabbing the hand still wrapped around Derek’s side. “You’re bleeding.”

“Oh.” Scott blinks at his skinned palm. “I must’ve scraped it when I…fell on you,” he finishes lamely. “It’s fine, I didn’t even notice it.” Derek tears off the bottom of his shirt and wraps it around Scott’s hand. “Derek, I said it’s fine.”

Stiles watches Derek with narrowed eyes. “How did you not notice the blood sooner?” he asks.

Derek shakes his head, brows drawn together. “Should’ve.” He frowns at the too-loose knot he ties and nods at Stiles to help him. “He got hurt. Because of me.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Scott says. They ignore him.

“No, I mean,” Stiles says. He fixes the knot and turns to Derek. “That’s fresh Living blood like a foot away from your nose. How did you not smell it?”

Derek shrugs. “Rain, I guess.”

Stiles gapes in bewildered disbelief. “Since when has a little bit of rain ever stopped a Corpse from scenting blood in the air?”

An armored car rounds the corner and stops in front of them, blinding them with their headlights. “…Shit,” Stiles mutters.

“What’re you kids doing out here?” General McCall demands as he jumps out of the car, two armed guards close behind him. “There was a Corpse sighting on Devil Street. The Stadium’s on lockdown.”

“Ohhh,” Stiles says. He sways forward, flinging a hand onto General McCall’s shoulder as his words slur. “We must’ve, uh, missed the announcement, _sir_.”

General McCall leans back. “Are you drunk, Stilinski?”

“ _No_ ,” Stiles sings, then stumbles right into him.

General McCall sighs. “You all need to get inside,” he says, pushing Stiles towards Scott. “Scott, your mother’s house is closest. Lock the doors and stay away from the windows until patrol comes by with the all-clear.”

“Sir yes sir!” Stiles shouts, then lets out a hiccup.

“I’m going to have to talk about this with your father,” General McCall tells Stiles, shaking his head before he turns to Scott and Derek. “Are you two going to be able-” He frowns, squinting at Derek. “I don’t think I’ve met you before.”

“Oh, um, this is Derek,” Scott says, trying to pitch his voice as normally as he can. “He’s a friend of Kira’s, new in Medical.”

“Oh, well, nice to meet you, Derek,” General McCall says, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. “I’m always happy to get to know a new friend of Scott’s.” Stiles snorts, and General McCall shoots him a glare. “Got something to say, Stilinski?”

“Huh? Me?” Stiles shakes his head, eyes wide. “Nooo, not me, no sir. Just remembering that warm welcome you gave Allison and Isaac and Kira back in the day. Very friendly.”

General McCall shakes his head. “Get inside. Stick to the main roads where there’s plenty of visibility. I have to finish this sweep. Nice to meet you, Derek.” He shakes Derek’s hand quickly, then pauses with a frown.

“I’m freezing!” Stiles shouts, but General McCall stares closer at Derek. “Because, you know, rain! Makes your extremities very cold! I think I’m getting hypothermia!”

“Why won’t you look me in the eye, Derek?” General McCall asks quietly. Derek glances briefly at Scott, then leans away from him and lifts his head.

General McCall’s eyes widen, and he levels his gun at the center of Derek’s face almost before Scott can fling himself between them. “ _Corpse!_ ” he shouts, and more guards spill from the car, weapons drawn. “Scott, get away from it.”

Scott shakes his head frantically. “Dad, wait, please just listen to me.”

“Listen to what, that’s a Corpse!” General McCall snaps. “You’re too close to it, you need to move Scott, move _now_. Guards-”

“ _Nobody move,_ ” Stiles bellows. He steps in front of Scott with the patrolman’s gun aimed between General McCall’s eyes. “My father was a Sheriff and I don’t need aim at this range,” he says, eyes darting around the hesitating guards. He clicks the safety off. “Lower your weapons. That includes you, General.”

The guns point down and away from Derek, and Scott lets out a breath. “Stiles-”

“Go, Scott,” Stiles says, staring down General McCall. “Just get him out of here, get him somewhere safe. I’ll be fine.” His eyes shift to meet Scott’s, softening for a moment. “No matter what happens, okay? Whatever you choose, Scott, I want you to know. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us.”

Scott’s throat tightens. He squeezes Stiles’ arm. “Thank you, Stiles.”

Stiles nods jerkily, mouth curling into a brief smile before his eyes harden. “Now _go!_ ”

Scott tugs Derek in front of him, shielding him with his body until they cross through the tunnels. “Scott,” Derek says as Scott shuts the door behind them. “I’m sorry-”

“It’s not your fault,” he says quickly. He wipes salty rainwater from his face and draws a shaky breath. “Okay, Derek? What happened isn’t your fault.”

“But-”

Scott grabs his hand. “It was never going to be a clean exit. We all knew that. And if we’re going to help people change, we have to do it together.” He squeezes Derek’s hand, so tightly he can feel Derek’s fingers crush together. “All that matters is we’re together, okay? As long as we’re together, we can keep each other safe.”

Derek nods, squeezing back with a hesitant smile. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Scott grins back, blinks away more rainwater, then pauses at the sound of shuffling in the next room. “Do you hear that?”

Derek frowns. He pushes Scott behind him as they step into the room, then his face goes slack. “ _M?_ ”

Scott peeks over Derek’s shoulder, and his mouth falls open. M stands in the center of the room, illuminated by moonlight falling through the glass-paned ceiling, and behind her are – dozens of Dead, a hundred if not more. Her mouth widens in a grin, and she lifts a hand to wave. “Derek.”

Scott stumbles forward, brushing aside Derek’s attempts to step in front of him. “M,” he croaks out, staring at the gathered Dead. “How…there’s so many.”

“Had – a dream,” M says, grin widening. “Two nights ago.” Her bright blue gaze softens, head tilting back in fondness. “Fireworks. Music. Fourth of – July. Saw-” She blinks. Her pauses are different now, sharper and more deliberate instead of trailing, and Scott watches in surprise as she swallows. “I saw my family. Mom – Dad – baby sister.”

“M.” His throat tightens, tears stinging at his eyes, and she steps forward and flings her arms around him. “Thank you,” she says, tucking her face into his shoulder. “Scott. _Thank you_.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Scott says, patting her back helplessly. “M – this was all you. And you – you brought so many with you.” He peers through the crowd, but can’t spy a small dirty-blond head anywhere. “Where’s Liam?”

“Safe,” M says. She touches the back of his hand with a firm nod. “I promise.”

Scott nods, but a confused dread rises in the back of his throat. “It’s…not safe here?”

She shakes her head. “Boneys. Coming – here – for you.” She taps his chest with a finger, right over his heart. “All of you.”

Derek turns to Scott. “Have to warn them.”

He nods. “I have to…I have to tell them. Thank you,” he says, turning back to M. “You have to get out of here now,” Scott says. “If you stay, Security’s gonna come through here and kill all of you.”

M tilts her head, brows creasing. “If we leave. Boneys will kill – all of _you_.”

Scott stares at the Dead nodding in agreement. “Please,” he says. “You already came to warn us. You don’t owe us anything.”

“We are human, too,” M says, lifting her chin with something akin to pride. “You helped us – remember that.”

Derek nudges him with a smile. “You matter,” he says. “You’re special.”

“No.” Scott shakes his head. “No, there’s nothing special about me. I’m just like anyone else. But _you_ -”

“If you’re not special,” M interrupts. “Then others – will understand us – just like you do.”

He gapes at her, mouthing wordlessly while her mouth curls into a sly grin. “Always was the smart one,” Derek tells Scott, gesturing at M with a shrug.

Scott snaps his mouth shut. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’ll go back and talk to them. …Braeden’ll listen to me, and – Parrish, I think. I’ll tell them you’re here to help. I’ll be back soon.” He turns to leave, and Derek turns along with him. “…What’re you doing.”

“Coming with you,” Derek says, as if stating the obvious.

Scott shakes his head. “No. You barely made it out last time; you can’t go _back_ there.”

He starts to walk away, but Derek grabs his hand. “I’m not leaving you again.”

Scott looks down at their joined hands. “Derek.” He meets Derek’s gaze. “I’m coming back. I promise.”

Derek heads back down the tunnel, grip tight as a vise around Scott’s. “Need to get going.”

“No!” He forces Derek’s hand open and tugs himself free. “You’re not going back there. They’ll kill you.” He points back at M and the other Dead. “You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

“Nowhere is safe,” Derek says. He shrugs. “Not anymore. You said – as long as we’re together-”

“You can’t.” Scott feels his throat close, and Derek’s eyes widen in concern as his voice tightens. “You can’t, okay, Derek, you can’t because I can’t – I – I can’t-”

Derek quickly digs out Scott’s inhaler and holds it up to his mouth. Scott pushes it away and throws his arms around Derek, pulling him in tight. “I can’t lose you,” he chokes out. Tears squeeze past his eyelids and soak through Derek’s shirt. “I can’t – when he – I thought you were – and I can’t, I can’t lose you, Derek. I – I just don’t want anything to happen to you, okay?”

Derek’s arms curl around him. “Scott,” he murmurs, softer than Scott’s ever heard him, “I can’t promise you that.”

He swallows down a sob as Derek holds him close, all the words he’s never been able to say pressing into his skin and settling deep in his bones. “I know. I…I know.” He pulls back and wipes his face on the back of his arm, looking up into Derek’s bright blue eyes. “I just need to know you’re safe, okay, Derek? As safe as I can keep you. I promise I’m coming back, I just. Please.”

Derek nods. “Okay,” he says, pressing Scott’s hands gently between his. “Okay.”

Glass from the ceiling rains down on the Dead, and two Boneys drop in front of them. M lunges forward and grabs the first one as it lands, hurling it into the crowd. _“Go!”_ she roars at Scott, then drags the other Boney back into the fray.

Scott drops Derek’s hands and sprints for the far end of the tunnel. Footsteps pound after him, and he glances over to see Derek sprinting right next to him. He gapes for so long that he slams headlong into the door instead of opening it. “How – since when can you run that fast?” he demands as Derek yanks open the door.

“Does that matter right now?” Derek says, glancing over his shoulder as he shoves Scott through the doorway. They barely reach the end of the hall before three Boneys burst through the door after them.

He turns down a hallway, nearly gets his face bitten off by a lunging Boney, then quickly tugs Derek down another hallway. It twists into a sharp turn that abruptly brightens as they run, and Scott barely has time to wonder why before he runs into a railing looking out over a steep drop into the fountains. “Shit,” he gasps. They’re several stories up and the water’s only five feet at its deepest; he _might_ survive the fall, but it sure won’t be pleasant. “Shit.”

A screech echoes down the hall, and they turn to see three Boneys lurching towards them. Derek looks at them, then at the drop, then nods to himself and climbs over the railing. “Derek-”

He grips the railing tight with one hand and holds out the other to Scott. “Climb over.”

“Derek.” He sighs and swings one leg and then the other over, sitting on the railing with Derek as his only barrier against near-certain death. “Make sure you find Colonel Braeden, and Lieutenant Parrish, and especially Nurse Melissa McCall, okay? They’ll listen to you.”

“Listen to you more,” Derek says. He tucks Scott’s free arm into his chest. “You’re gonna make it.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Scott.” Derek wraps his free arm tight around Scott and looks into his eyes. “I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

Scott huffs a laugh, but it comes out closer to a sigh. “You can’t promise that, Derek.”

“I can,” Derek says firmly. “I can promise you this.” He lets go of the railing and cradles the base of Scott’s head, fingertips brushing gently through his hair. “Trust me, Scott.”

The Boneys’ footsteps thud closer. Scott takes a deep breath and tucks his head into Derek’s chest. “I do,” he says, and lets go of the railing.

For a few short seconds, he feels nothing but sheer terror. Then Derek hits the water, and Scott’s eyes fly open just in time to slam into the fountain’s stone floor. He reflexively gasps for breath, sucks in what feels like half of the pool, and quickly sputters his way to the surface.

“Holy shit,” he gasps, or tries to while he coughs out a lungful of water. His legs are as wobbly as jelly, but he can stand, and move his arms, and his bones seem intact as he quickly pats himself over. “Holy shit. It _worked_. Derek, it worked!” He turns around in a circle, frowning when he doesn’t see Derek shrugging at him. “Derek?”

He steps forward and runs into something solid. Derek lies motionless on the fountain floor, eyes shut and hands limp at his sides. “Derek!” He dives forward and tugs Derek upright, panicking for a full two seconds when Derek doesn’t breathe after breaking the surface. Then he remembers that the Dead don’t breathe at all anyway.

Then Derek’s eyes fly open as he sucks in a lungful of air.

Scott’s jaw drops as he watches Derek cough water out of his lungs, doubling over with heaving gasps before finally straightening in Scott’s arms. “You’re okay,” he says, although it sounds closer to a question as his eyes and hands flit over Scott’s body. “You’re okay.”

Scott nods, gaze locked on Derek’s heaving chest. “Yeah, I’m okay. Derek.”

Derek looks up at him, eyes widening in concern, and Scott pauses. Maybe it’s the trick of the water, but his eyes don’t look quite as blue anymore, look almost green against the fading sun. “Scott?” Derek asks.

“You’re,” Scott says. He places a hand on the center of Derek’s chest, watching it rise and fall in a steady rhythm. “Derek, you’re-”

A gunshot rings across the water, and a grisly hole appears just above Derek’s heart. “Derek!” Scott yells. He whirls, pressing as close to Derek as possible as he watches General McCall and four other soldiers approach with their guns pointed at him. “Step aside, Scott,” General McCall orders.

“Dad, wait,” Scott says. “Just listen to me, please, he isn’t-”

“Get away from the Corpse, Scott!” General McCall shouts. “You’re too close, we can’t get to you before it attacks.”

“He won’t,” Scott says. “He won’t, just like the other Dead – the other Corpses here aren’t hurting anyone, Dad, please just-” His chest heaves, lungs squeezing tight. He presses back against Derek’s chest, drawing in deep breaths against comforting warmth. “-just let me explain, please.”

“Scott.” His voice is tight, clipped as he aims his gun just over Scott’s head. “Get away from the Corpse, Scott, please, before you get hurt.”

Scott pushes Derek further down behind him. “Don’t do this, Dad,” he says. “They’re different, they’re changing, _he’s_ changing, just listen to him, listen to me, Dad, please, he’s…” His entire body shakes from the cold, exhaustion, bone-chilling terror, and he leans closer to the heat behind him.

…Heat. He can feel heat pouring into the back of his neck, heat spilling across his spine pressed to Derek’s chest. Scott’s breath stutters, turning his neck slowly to look at Derek. “He’s…”

“He’s bleeding,” Braeden says, staring past Scott with wide eyes.

“What?” Scott looks down to see the bright blue water clouding over with red, then spins around to see blood sluggishly dripping from the bullet wound in Derek’s chest. “Oh my – _Derek_. You’re-” He turns back to the soldiers. “He’s-”

Braeden lowers her rifle and switches on her radio. “Medical, send Melissa McCall to the southwest fountains stat. A human has been shot and requires medical attention. I repeat.” She looks at Derek, then Scott. “A Living human has been shot.”

“Colonel, get back here!” General McCall yells as Braeden wades into the fountain. “Colonel-”

“He’s bleeding, sir,” Braeden says. “Last time I checked, you can’t bleed without a heart to pump it out of you.” She lifts Derek’s arm over her shoulder and presses close to his side. “We’re gonna get you out of here. You’re gonna be okay. Scott, support him on his other side.”

“Sir!”

Scott watches Parrish sprint towards them, radio clutched in his hand. “Sir, reports are coming in all over. Corpses fighting the Boneys, protecting our soldiers. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. A Corpse – I was unarmed, it could’ve killed me, but it-” He spreads his hands. “She helped me get back up. The Corpses, Sir, they’re – they’re _helping_ us.”

“Keeping you safe,” Derek mumbles. He flashes Scott a weak smile before his eyes slide shut.

Scott hears the rumble of a Jeep and looks up to see Mom and Kira leap out of the back. “Yeah, well,” he says, meeting General McCall’s stunned gaze, “Now it’s our turn.”

General McCall blinks slowly as Scott follows the others into the Jeep. “Lower your weapons,” Scott hears him order, just barely loud enough to be heard over the engine’s rumble. “Looks like things have changed.”

Derek’s eyes crack open as the Jeep pulls away, and he glances around in confusion. “Scott?” he asks. “Where – what’s happening?”

He cradles Derek’s cheek gently in his lap and smiles as warmth seeps into his palm. “I’m keeping you safe.”


	4. Derek

“So, this is terrifying,” Stiles says.

Lydia rolls her eyes. “Stiles, does the term ‘boosting morale’ mean _anything_ to you?”

“Does the term ‘why are you bringing a ten-year-old into a buffer zone filled with soldiers and guns and the recently-Dead’ mean anything to _you?_ ”

“I’m almost eleven!” Mason pipes up, crossing his arms with a frown.

“Yeah, in about nine months,” Kira says, tapping at her chart as she walks up to them. “Alright, so we’ll be working with a woman, estimated mid-to-late twenties, and a boy, estimated…pre-adolescence.”

“Your Medical team is _amazing_ at narrowing down the ages,” Stiles deadpans. Lydia sighs exasperatedly at him. “What? I’m just saying.”

Kira tucks her chart away. “Be nice, okay? Scott’s still working with the children at the airport; he specifically requested that we partner with these two.”

“Because Mason’s the only Living kid in existence with previous zombie experience?” Stiles says dryly.

“No,” Kira says as Braeden leads the pair of previously-Dead towards them. “Because these are Derek’s friends.”

The woman steps forward. “Hello!” she says, holding out her arm with a nervous smile. “You must be – Lydia. And Stiles.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you,” Lydia says, shaking her hand carefully. “And this is – Mason? What are you-”

Lydia twists around as Mason peers out from behind her back. Across from them, the sandy-haired boy seems to be trying his hardest to hide behind Kira. “Liam, come here,” the woman says, pulling him forward with a laugh. “These are Scott’s friends. Remember? Derek told you about them.”

Stiles straightens abruptly, eyes widening. “Oh no. What did he tell you? Whatever it is, it’s all lies. And slander! Lies and slander.”

“Oh,” the woman says, eyebrows lifting. “So you… _didn’t_ actually save his life? That time?” She tilts her head with a smirk. “He said you were very brave.”

“Oh. Well. I mean.” Stiles smooths a hand through his hair. “I guess I kind of am, yeah.”

“Oh, my god.” Lydia rolls her eyes, then nudges Mason in front of her. “Mason, did you want to show Liam what you made for him?”

Mason shuffles forward, hands jammed into his pockets. “Here,” he says, thrusting a piece of paper towards Liam. Or, more accurately, towards Kira while Liam peers out from behind her. “It’s a…paper crane.”

“ _Whoa_ ,” Liam gasps, stumbling forward with wide eyes. “You made this?”

“Yeah,” Mason says, relaxing as Liam’s hands close around the folded paper with near-reverence. “It’s not that hard, actually. I could show you.”

“Really?” Liam beams at Mason, a single gap showing through his toothy smile.

Mason nods eagerly. “Yeah, we just need some paper. Come on, the bookstore’s this way!”

He grabs Liam’s hand, and the two speedwalk down the road without so much as a backwards glance. Lydia sighs and tugs Braeden after her to catch up with them. “Do you know how to make a paper wolf?” Liam asks.

“I haven’t made one before, but I think I saw one in a book,” Mason says. “We can try it. Hey, how old are you?”

“Nine. I think.”

“Oh, nice. I’m ten.”

Liam glances shiftily at Kira, then turns back to Mason. “I could be ten.”

“Cool.”

Stiles falls into step next to the woman. “So, uh. I’m Stiles.”

She nods. “I know.”

“Right.” He nods awkwardly. “Uh, what exactly did Scott tell you about me?”

“Oh, plenty of things,” she says. She grins. “But I’d rather find out for myself.”

“Me, too,” Stiles says. “I mean, I’ve heard really great things about you, but.” He lets out a nervous laugh. “Me, too.”

They stop in front of the bookstore while the others disappear inside. “You know,” the woman says, “you never asked me my name.”

“Oh. Well.” He scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t want to, you know, _assume_ -”

“Malia,” she interrupts. “My name is Malia.”

“Malia,” Stiles repeats. His mouth curves into a soft grin. “That’s a beautiful name.”

Malia’s smile brightens, and a faint dust of pink blooms over her cheeks. “Thank you.”

Stiles nods as his own smile widens. “I’m Stiles.”

“I know.”

“Right.” Stiles shakes his head while Malia laughs. “Right, that’s, like, the third time I did that. Right.”

 

* * *

 

“Scott, come on!”

Scott laughs as Derek pulls him down the tunnel. “Slow down! I still have asthma, you know.”

Derek slows, swinging their joined hands as they walk the rest of the way. “Sorry, I got too excited,” he says. “I just don’t us want to miss it.”

“Well, we wouldn’t if we just stayed on the roof with everyone else,” Scott says. “I know Liam’s at that jaded teenager stage when he pretends not to want you around, but he _did_ actually want you to stay for the show.” He twists in Derek’s grip, glancing around the concrete walls. “How come you wanted to come down here?”

“ _Up_ here,” Derek corrects. They stop in front of a metal railing overlooking the southwest fountains. “Best view in the Stadium.”

He crouches to open his backpack, and hears Scott snort when he pulls out a blanket. “How romantic.”

Derek sits down next to him at a safe distance from the railing. “Happy Anniversary.”

Scott beams. “Happy Anniversary,” he says, leaning in close. Derek leans back, and Scott’s lips graze over his cheek instead. “Hey!”

“It’s gonna happen any minute now,” Derek says, nudging Scott’s face forward. “Do you really want to miss it?”

“We wouldn’t miss it, it’ll be really loud and we’d definitely hear it,” Scott says. He nuzzles into Derek’s neck, hot breath ghosting over his skin and sending tingles down Derek’s spine. “And I _really_ want to kiss my boyfriend on our anniversary.”

“I’ve got something better.”

“I doubt that,” Scott says, then falls silent when Derek pulls a small fruit out of the backpack. “Is that…”

“Gardening’s first peach,” Derek says, rolling it into Scott’s cupped hands. “The tree finally bloomed this year.”

“Wow,” Scott says softly, staring down at the peach. He flicks open his knife and cuts two neat slices, handing the first one over to Derek. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Derek toasts his slice against Scott’s, then lifts it to his mouth and takes a bite. It bursts tangy and sweet on his tongue, and juice dribbles sticky tracks down his chin. His eyes drop shut as he swallows, savoring the luscious nectar and fuzzy peel. He tips the rest of the slice into his mouth, licking his fingers clean.

Scott grins at him when he finally opens his eyes. “What?” Derek asks.

“You…” Scott begins, then ducks his head with a blushing smile. He looks back up at Derek and shrugs.

“Shrug,” Derek says, as a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. He leans in, Scott’s breath puffing warm and sweet over his lips, and then a loudspeaker crackles through the air.

 _“All teams ready, on my mark,”_ Parrish’s voice echoes across the Stadium. _“In three, two, one-”_

Distant thuds rumble through the silence. Then a loud crack, then another, until plumes of dust rise as the Stadium’s walls tumble down. Scott leans forward to watch, flushed with excitement as his hands grip the edge of the blanket. He turns to Derek as the last of the wall disappears into the dust, smiling so much his entire face crinkles. “We did it.”

He pulls Scott in tight, tucking his face into the crook of Scott’s neck. “I always knew we would.”

“Really?”

“No,” he admits. Scott’s ribs jump in laughter under his grip. “But I hoped.”

“So did I.” Scott curls his hands around Derek’s face. “Derek,” he murmurs, smiling against his lips before pressing into a soft kiss. Their mouths slide together, gentle and warm with the faint taste of peaches dancing across Scott’s tongue.

Derek draws back slowly, chest heaving as he catches his breath. Scott leans up and kisses the thin scar on his forehead, sighing as Derek curls a hand over the nape of his neck. “Derek. D.”

Derek Delgado. He likes the way it sounds, tumbling neatly off his tongue. Or, well, he imagines it would roll off his tongue. He hasn’t said it out loud, yet, content to keep it folded up inside his mind for now. It’s a tiny secret, a small hope, and he’s had so many wishes and wants come true that he doesn’t dare bring this one to light.

Besides, he wants to hear Scott say it first.

He strokes the back of Scott’s neck. “Scott,” he says. Scott, I love you. Scott, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Scott…thank you.

Scott tilts their heads together, eyes shining bright as the setting sun. “Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that Derek and Scott dance to is [“Romeo And Juliet”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OaTaEX8Kh8) by Dire Straits.
> 
> Spanish translations:  
>  _Yo hablo español_ – I speak Spanish.  
>  _…Podía…hablar…lo = Podía hablarlo_ – I used to be able to speak [Spanish].  
>  _Sepa_ – a tense variation of saber (to know) that is accompanied by a shrug. (So basically, Scott is saying the Spanish equivalent of, “Shrug.”)  
>  Huge thanks to alan713ch for helping me with the translations!
> 
> Come say [hi](http://pocketlass.tumblr.com)!


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